In this two hour workshop, you will make and decorate a lotion bottle made of stoneware clay. The first hour will be focused on making the actual bottle and decorating it with applique. The second hour will be spent glazing it. You can make a bottle similar to the one pictured, or come up with your very own design – maybe sea oriented, or even sports related. The bottle will then be left to dry for a week before being fired in a kiln. The actual bottle, with lotion pump, will be available for pick up with in 3 weeks.
This workshop will take place Tuesday, February 12, from 6 – 8 pm. If you can’t make this date and would like to schedule another time, use the contact us tab and let me know what date and time would work for you (min 4 people).
One of the best aspects of my retirement, has been sharing my love of pottery with others. The last year, I have been offering pottery lessons as well as single night ceramic workshops at my home studio. With the new year, maybe you would like to add some relaxing creativity to your schedule, and here are a couple of ideas to do that.
Prescott Community Center Pieces
One of the workshops has been through the Prescott Community Center. This workshop is a 6 week project oriented class. Each week, students work on a new project. They have made mugs, bowls, plates, and butter dishes. All of which have been beautiful and unique. The great thing about pottery, in particular hand building, is you can make a professional looking piece, with no
experience. This spring, I will be offering two more workshops through Prescott. Once Prescott has the new catalog up, I will add a link.
High School freshman mug
On my website,I am offering an 8 week, 16 hours , pottery lessons. Currently, two of my students have both challenged me in very different ways. I have one young woman who is a freshman in high school. She is an artist, and combining that with her pottery, she has produced some really wonderful pieces. She has challenged me to be more artistic in my own glazing, and take more time in the final process. I love throwing, but glazing, which can be the make or break it of pottery making, has always been the worst part. I can make a beautiful pot, only to ruin it with my glazing.
Left Handed Bowl
My other challenger is a gentleman, who is left handed. I have been teaching pottery, off and on, since college, some 30 years now. I have never had a left handed person – or if I did, I didn’t know. Only recently have pottery wheels been able to go both directions – clock wise and counter clock wise. You could buy Shimpos way back then, which went both directions, but they were very expensive. As I am learning, people who are left handed are better suited to work on a wheel that turns clockwise, rather than counter clock wise – which most of us right handed folks use. I have to think twice when trying to help, and even with that,
Fairy House made at Workshop
some times I still don’t get it right!For me, throwing, at this point, is pretty much second nature. I don’t really think about what I am doing, I just do it. Despite the challenge, and my help, he has made some really gorgeous pots.
Another workshop which has been popular is “Make a Fairy House” or ” Make a Toad House“. If your neighborhood toads and fairies are homeless, this is the workshop for you!
Zentangle Platter
Another recent workshop was with Donna Spencer, a certified Zentangle teacher, a woman I met through the gallery I used to manage. She was one of the participating artists who made some of the most beautiful intricate pen and ink designs, called Zentangle. We ran a workshop combining zentangle and clay, and the attendees, limited to just 4 folks, made some gorgeous platters.
Donna and I are offering a new workshop in March, which will combine Zentangle and Sgraffito. Sgraffito is an ancient technique used to decorate pottery where a design is scratched into the clay. The workshop is limited to four folks. During the workshop you will make the platter, learn about Zentangle, and create your own beautiful design on the platter. Instead of applying the glaze, as in the previous workshop, you will scratch away the glaze to create the design.
Oak Leaves – Zentangle and Sgraffito
Lastly, I will be offering a workshop Sunday 2/24/19. The workshop will make a lotion or soap dispenser. For more information about that workshop, click here.New Workshop – Make a Lotion Dispenser
I hope to see you soon at one of my workshops, so I can share with you my love of clay. Not only is it a creative venue, but you will also find it is very relaxing and good for the soul.
Part of being an artist is learning through experience. Not everything works as it should. These two pieces took hours to make, but in the end, had too many defects to ever sell, so they go into my increasing inventory of rejects.
The oak leaf chip and dip had numerous stress fractures from drying too quickly. I have made a few more, and am changing the way I made them. This time, I have made the leaves and chip and dip, and allowed them to dry together in a plastic bag so they reach the same moisture content. Hoping that when I attach the leaves, they will have a better chance of surviving.
The bird feeder failed because I managed to knock some of the petals off when I was loading it into the kiln. They are fixed now with glaze, but if you look closely you can see the cracks. I like the idea of this bird feeder. It holds a surprising amount of thistle seed, and I can’t wait to see the bright yellow goldfinches sitting among the bright yellow flowers, so I will give it another shot.
If you ever wonder why handmade items cost so much, it is because lots of failures go into the final piece.
https://www.startonthestreet.org/
Part of being an artist is learning through experience. Not everything works as it should. These two pieces took hours to make, but in the end, had too many defects to ever sell, so they go into my increasing inventory of rejects.
