Saturday, June 30, 2007

Close Up of Waterfall glaze




Someone asked me to post a close-up of one of the tiles shown below. This is from the middle tile in the first picture below.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Finally... Waterfall Green?

Mastering Cone 6 Glazes has been an incredibly inspirational book for me.

There's something about the Waterfall Brown glaze that is so attractive. Simply put, it makes my tiles look awesome. Since February, I've been working on a spectrum of colors, using the Waterfall recipe as a base, and altering the colorants.

So far, I've developed a Waterfall white, a
Waterfall gold, a gorgeous subtle Waterfall sky blue and a vivid cobalt blue. Green is the only color I haven't been able to achieve, and with this last test load, I think I'm finally on the right path. I'm approaching test #60; it's easy to get a little carried away when the results are this rewarding.

These first examples- while they're lovely, still don't have enough green in them. But the detail is lovely.



This next set is clearly more promising for the green appearance I'm trying to find.


Here are the two tests that most closely resemble what I'm trying to create. There are a few pin holes in these, I'm not sure why. But I plan on running some more tests, to see if the pinholing persists.

BTW- sorry for the double post on the ClayArt board. :)

If anyone has any recipe questions, comments and/or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

It's been a while since I posted here, I did a little traveling, having to attend to a home that I own back in Ohio. It's a great home, sitting on 7+ acres of pure heaven. It's a Geodesic dome, surrounded by a forest of hardwood trees. With a huge, heated art studio. I miss living there- and hope that someday, another artist buys it. If not an artist, at least someone who fully appreciates all the custom woodworking and cabinetry that I did in it. It's full of secret hidden places, nooks and built-ins.

Here's a picture of it- although I'm not a snow lover, this home looks amazing in the winter.






I also had the opportunity to have a "girls night out" with some old woodshop friends. We met when they enrolled in the wood classes I used to teach. After a while, our friendships really weren't based on woodworking anymore, but rather more about sharing our lives- births and deaths, marriages and divorces, and certainly our highs and lows. It's funny how chance meetings with others give us friendships for life.



If you asked them about their woodworking skills, each one of these women would probably be modest and say they consider themselves just average. Don't believe it. They are all pretty great woodworkers, which is WAY cool. Someday, maybe I'll post a few of their projects here.