Got the horse hair...but no paint

My bff and my Mom both got me horse hair woo hoo! Now I just need a barrel and a place to set a fire since I don't think I can do it in my back yard without a fine from the city.
Well the cellar is on hold, at least the painting is. The guy at Home Depot says I better wait until it warms up and dries up, I will have to bleach the walls to kill the mold, let that dry and then fill the holes, prime the walls THEN I can paint. Bummer but can't change that.
Going to the SPCA today to bring them some blankets, I made some mugs over the weekend, of course I had a casualty...I was carving the foot on my favorite one when it flew off the wheel. Good thing Laney was on the other side of me, may have to get her a helmet.
Yippee, just got a lunch invite from my friend so I am off.

Cinderella

It's Monday morning the weekend was productive but not enough time to do everything I wanted. I did make it to Joshie's play, he did a wonderful job, here he is with this friends.

I worked on the cellar, I have a car full of clothes for the thrift store and a few bags of blankets for the SPCA. My Mom helped me try to organize the area, it is a good size space, is pretty damp and mildewy down there but on the positive side at leash my pots won't dry out to quickly.
So here are some pics of my area, I am planning the kiln in the back behind the table. That is my Great-Grandmothers old kitchen table, it's pretty sturdy, there is an old white kitchen cupboard I found in the cellar and I am going to fix that up for storage. The shelves were already there, just scraped and washed then added some primer and will repaint them. Of course I still have not figured out how to post these pics in the order that I want, it's on my list of things to do....keep in mind my taxes are on that list still.

So the wheel is still in the living room, I made 4 mugs when I was on a break, I used some slip and wax resist on one, I carved some designs in another and the last two I think I will use some under glazes. My boyfriend says I'm getting better :)

I meet with the city on Friday to talk about grants and such to open an actual business, I am supposed to have a business proposal ready....I made the appointment before I knew that the business proposal template was 28 pages but fear not.....it's on my list.

Six hours and counting...

It is my weekend off. I have a zillion things to do and this is overwhelming me but I have decided to start cleaning out the cellar. I should probably to file my taxes and grocery shop but I don't want to leave the house. Although the house is a wreck and I don't want to be here either... I think that is why I am so loopy, I want to work on some clay but I can't because there is no room to work. I did run errands yesterday, I dropped off some clothes to donate, I was separating everything to have a huge garage sale but do I really want to spend a whole weekend doing that for maybe a couple hundred dollars when there will be so much work to do in the spring??? So today I will focus on home. Here are some pics of my living room and dinning room....the proof that I truly need a studio.

So I am playing a game with myself...how much can I get done in 6 hours??? Game plan, bring all laundry to cellar, while cleaning cellar do laundry, take all things to be donated out of cellar and put directly into car (that's one step closer to thrift store), move all clay working items that will not be hurt by the cold to cellar YES I mean the wheel too. Move all already made clay pieces that I have no clue what to do with to cellar. Wait!!! I hate to put the wheel in the cellar I don't think it looks that bad in the living room :( see that's my crazy side talking... the wheel must be moved!

latest work

When I am posting my pics and writing, any new pics are coming before the first ones...like its backwards but these don't matter, the brown coil vase is my latest piece, I mixed some iron oxide into have of the clay when it was being recycled to see what would happen, I can't tell the difference right now, I alternated the coils with the plain brown and then with the brown that had the oxide in it. It is drying now, I am not going to rush it, hope it makes it out of the kiln. I don't know if I will just clear coat it or what, have to see what happens.

The blue coil bowl was made using the caulk gun extruder that I made after watching a video on you tube, it works pretty good. I then used a square bowl from the thrift store to slump it in. I had this great idea that if I squirted dark blue under glaze into the extruder it would make swirls in the clay like if you were frosting a cake with a piping bag, well that didn't really work out like I planned but I kept going to see if it would make it through the firing. There are not really any cracks but some spots they coils pulled away from each other. I like it.

The dog statue was made for me by my girl Laurie, it is my Laney Lue, I think it looks like her, I will post a pic of her too, see if you can tell who is the real Laney :)

I'm back, wanted to see how that looked before I did more pics. This is the fired pieces, where it was thick on the plate it pulled up but I think it is because the first layer was dry when I poured it on but who know. The bowl didn't look bad but again it was pretty thick. I don't mind the color I kinda like it, it's earthy looking. The last piece is being fired now after Munch went over it with a colored glaze to see what would happen. I have about 2 pints of this left don't know what I'll do with it.

I have figured out how to add some pics! So this is the day I thought I would make some slip using quik crete stain because I didn't have any real mason stains and didn't know the difference. The next two pics are the mixing and then some pieces I applied it to. I dipped the bowl with the lid, I painted on and then dripped thick spots onto the plate. The flower pot I just painted on. The mixing was quite messy, I didn't measure anything.

Okay so I got the pictures on here, in the opposite order that I wanted but the end result is the same. I did have the pieces fired and I will attempt to post them on the next one but I am not promising anything. I have since made more slip with real mason stains and actually measured it, I get to pick up some pieces Tuesday that I used it on. Keeping my fingers crossed because I made five different colors.

"Slip" Take 2

Saturday Munch, Shawn and I went to the "clay store". This was Munchie's first trip. We bought a few new tools to try and some mason stains so we could try making our own slip but just in case we got two premixed slips as a back up.
I tried making slip a few weeks ago, inspired by another blog (Linda..Blue Star Gallery). I had used quick Crete stain instead of mason stains because that's all I could get locally. Well it was supposed to be red. I watered some down and used it to paint like a watercolor. Turned out kinda silver metallic and in some areas brown. I didn't measure anything just put a squirt in a shot glass and added some water, maybe a few teaspoons if I had to guess. Then I mixed up some of my clay that was waste from throwing on the wheel with a hand mixer in a big bowl so it was like pancake batter then again without measuring squirted some color into it. I dipped a piece, painted a piece, carved out a design on a piece then just globbed a bunch on a piece. The end result it that it turned like a dark oatmeal/taupe color and where it was thick it peeled up and cracked. I do like the color but don't think I will make any more.
So take 2....I used the recipe that was on this other blog, kinda, I used 1cup of slip to 2 tablespoons of mason stains. I made 5 colors and just finished the test tiles and they will go to the kiln this Thursday. Now that I think about it I shouldn't have made all of them just in case it doesn't work out, I made 3 cups of each color. I probably should have only made one cup to start but I have a good feeling it will work out.
I am also going to start plastering the kids faces to make molds, I should have the plaster on Friday. I want to do some hand building next, trying to clear off the table to have some work space. In the meantime, I have a call into the electrician about the ampage problem, made my dog a vet appointment and myself an appointment to get my taxes done.
I am going to start an inspiration book, taking pics of stuff I like, designs etc and start sketching stuff, on the PB group some people make screen savers. I like that idea, but still can't get the pics downloaded but my boyfriend is going to see what he can do tonight to fix that. That's all for now.