This first one is my Hawaiian dude, and I picked up the gold hoop earrings for him at Super Wal-Mart yesterday when I was buying all the food, pop and other stuff for Sammy's birthday party.
I used Riverstone glaze on his, well... I guess you would call it hair, which is a favorite glaze of mine. The greens and browns in Riverstone are consistently beautiful. For the face, I painted on a coat of Ginger Blue glaze, which is a milky light colored glaze, and then I sponged on a coat of a glaze called Melon... I wanted his face to turn out with more of the color of the Melon glaze, a light orange, but the Ginger Blue totally ruled, and his face was way too white after the 1st glaze firing... so I tried again & painted on more of the Melon and put him through a 2nd glaze firing. You can see the bits where the Melon shows, though he's still too white for what I had planned him to look like, but that's glazing... live and learn. I like him anyway. I like how the red clay shows through on his face. I think his hoop earrings make him look quite festive.
This next finished shaker ball is my sumo dude.
Why sumo?... who knows. He was fun to make. I made him out of white clay, which if you were to put clear glaze would be more of a grayish white color... not what I wanted, so I glazed him all over in an opaque glossy white glaze first. I then painted on glossy black for his hair with some red for the hair band. The white made a good attempt to rule over the black, and I was just plain lucky on this... I like how his hair turned out with the fading and spotting, bubbling effect. But still smooth and glossy. Very lucky.
We're getting quite a collection of critter shaker balls here at home... with more comin' up. In preparation for my surgery recuperation period next January and February, I'm making some shaker balls and box pots up so that I can paint them during those weeks when I won't be able to work with clay. It won't be the same as getting my hands all into the wet clay, but it's at least something I can do (I hope) so I don't suffer from pottery withdrawals too much. I'm hooked on it. Working on pottery projects at home is not as satisfying as going to Space Studios, though... the place, the people, the light, the smells there are all part of the immense enjoyment and satisfaction I get from working with clay. The place is also inspiring and gets my creative juices flowing in a very happy way. Sometimes when I'm driving by the building, I have this urge to let my car take me there. If my kids are with me, they'll holler, "don't look," so we can get to where we're going... Sometimes after I pick Sammy up at school, on our way home, I will stop in at the Studio to see if anything of mine has come out of the kiln, and really just to see anything that's come out of the kiln, and get a dose of the Studio for 5 or 10 minutes. It's a happy moment. Best Christmas present I ever got. Well, 2nd best. The 1st has to be the engagement ring from Kev on Christmas 1982. All together now, awww...
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