Wax Resist

For the distant future, I am challenging myself to only wheel-throw as opposed to my chronic  obsession with hand -building pottery.

Here are a bunch of mugs I left very simple and un-altered. Of course I am not one to keep things completely simple (aka. PLAIN), so this will be a challenge to decorate wheel-thrown pieces without adding extra clay.

For these mugs I stamped in some sayings and images. The fun part was painting on wax . Any place there is wax, the glazes will not adhere. Later, the wax burns off in the kiln. As a design element, I created arches with the wax, glazed them and it produced a nice effect. The bare clay shows through  in the arches and yet I still have areas of beautiful glazes.

I am currently painting and sgraffitto-carving a bunch of vessels. I will add photos  of these pieces in the current days. I’ve also tripled the amount of clay I would typically throw on the wheel.

I love giving myself challenges. It makes me grow as an artisan and keeps things fun and interesting. I think they call that ” a perpetual learner” :)