DAY #268 -UNDERGLAZING THE DEAD

I just can’t wait!!!  I LOVE THESE MUGS!!!

I could never sell them for the amount of hours they took me to engrave and paint, so these will be keepers.  Wahoo!

I won’t even tell you how many hours I spent painting them.  It’s ridiculous.

Now for those of you who are not too involved with the pottery process, let me tell you a few things.  First, although the clay looks gray, it is white clay, so it will fire white which will give me the white of my Dia De Los Muertos themed skulls.  The glazes I am using are not traditional glazes.  Traditional glazes are adhered after the pottery has been bisque fired (bisque is the first of two firings).  So these are called under glazes. They go on while the clay is still wet, they get bisque fired and when they come out the will have a dry matte finish.  I then have the option to dip the mugs in a clear glaze and fire them a second time to make them glossy and less susceptible to staining.  This is what I will do.  It is also why when you share kilns with a hundred other people, the entire process takes 3-4 weeks.  If all goes well, I’ll be sipping hot coffee out of my skull mugs on Halloween night!

It was a nerve-wracking ride back to the pottery studio today.  The drier an unfired piece of clay gets, the more brittle it gets.  Rhea, my pottery instructor, thought for sure I’d have a catastrophe, but fear not, I drove ten miles per hour, aggravating the entire town, until I safely arrived at the studio.  They are now sitting safely on the rack by the kiln.  So if anything happens, I’m blaming PLUM POTTERY EAST! hee hee hee.  That’s horrible to say, accidents do happen.  I’m just thankful for the ones not caused be myself!

So this concludes today’s creativity challenge.  I am still sick with body aches from yesterdays fever, so again, I’m off to bed early.  I hope to start a new painting tomorrow, so I better conjure up some energy.

Good Night.

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