End of the Year!

It's been a long year. The full-time job I have been working this past year has left me with no mental energy to work on my art. Plus, because I was off my game a little I had a bit of a kiln accident where it over-fired by about 10 hours, disintigrated the white low-fire clay pieces I had in there, which then ran all over the shelves and into the bottom of the kiln creating all sorts of havoc. I'm in need of a new one, but for now I'm going to try to insulate the bottom with the stuff you put in a raku kiln and see if it works. I'll have to manually fire it, because my "kiln-sitter" melted, but I suppose that's probably better anyway. At least I won't be able to get lazy like I did before.

Anyway, I've been selling some items on etsy.com, which has given me new life, and I will be adding some more stuff soon....including that rimmed bowl I was talking about earlier. Because of the job, I don't have a lot of new stuff, but something is better than nothing.

On a good note, at the end of the year I'll be quitting the full-time day job and will go back to doing what I do best (with something else to supplement, but not monopolize all my time) and should have new stuff to add soon.

Until then, here's a picture of the new pup in the brood. She's 7 months old as of this coming week.

Nothing like puppies to make the frustrations vanish!

Yawning puppies are even better. They're 6 weeks old today. Got shots and wormed.

The one on the left in this picture is coming to live with us. Tuck isn't so happy about it though.

More Schnauzers!

These are dog bowls that were a request order. The customer requested a "Dog from Hell" bowl for each dog (Max and Doogie) and told me each dog's vice....and tada! They're regular angels, I'm sure.

I had a great time making these. It might just be a personal problem that I can so easily amuse myself, but I was chuckling to myself while I was covered in clay dust. (And then wondering if I was just a little too proud of myself.

Most particularly the squirrels, I guess. I think it's the expression on their faces...but it made me think of a big tray and covered dish I've always wanted to make that was a chicken who was "crossing the road" but didn't make it. The covered dish is a tire. I guess I'm just sadistic. When I get some free time to amuse myself, for myself, I'll post the finished product on here.

Anyway, here they are "The Dogs from Hell". I'm guessing you'll see these come up again (minus the devil theme, since that wasn't really mine) Probably sitting on top of a covered jar.


These below are Doogie, who also appears below in his young master's mug. Doogie apparently has an unfortunate addiction to candy. Who can blame you, Doogie. I've been dipping into the peanut butter M&M's a little too much the past few months myself. :) Bon Appetit!

Custom Two-handled Child's Mug

This is Doogie...waiting patiently for his young human to emerge over the edge of the mug. It may be awhile though, since Doogie's young human can't hold a mug yet.

It's been cloudy, rainy, and snowy here for 3 days straight, so finding enough light reflection in order to cleverly conceal my dog nail scratched floor (let alone enough light to take the picture without rigging up my slap hazard light box...which, quite honestly is a couple of pieces of cardboard, some white paper, and some desk lamps) proved difficult. So, you can now see that the six hours I spent on my hands and knees refinishing my fir living room floors 7 years ago, has been for naught.

I still detest this blogspot formatting, and will be searching for a new host soon. Right after the six million other things I need to get done. I also finished a small rimmed bowl with an upside-down sleeping pooch on the rim, but I don't have enough time to post it yet. (Plus the pics don't do it much justice, but you'll get the point) My "day" job awaits.

Slacking

"Lean to the left, Tuck. It makes us look like we have no idea why she keeps pointing the camera at us."

It's been awhile since I've posted anything and I'm sure that makes me remarkably uninteresting, but a day job has left me with un-needed stress....and it had nothing to do with the at-risk teens I'm working with, but a ner-do-well assistant who is causing more problems than he's worth.

I've been sitting on a new rimmed bowl design for awhile now. It just needs some underglaze and a firing and a glaze firing and we're good to go. I suppose I could post a picture of it in process. That might even be kind of interesting. I'll work on that in the next couple of days.

The dogs have been remarkably boring lately. Tuck did take a dramatic spill off of his trunk/windowsill perch, so I moved furniture around. Also, one of my favorite things to do is troll Target in between seasons for the clearance items and I found a denim love seat cover for a mere $20 which has turned what used to be a really fun piece of furniture for tearing off the cushions and pillows and pulling out stuffing, into a rather nice little couch. (The pillows still get thrown on the floor, but I can deal with that.

I also learned that if Tuck frees himself, he comes back to the word "Stick". Border Collies are the weirdest dogs on the planet. :)

Special Orders #2

This is a custom bowl designed for Claygreys two greyhounds, Stoney and Beans. Fun to do skinny bodies and long legs!

Special Orders

A custom border collie mug. This was a "blue" border collie, which is charcoal colored. I'm afraid it's a little dark....but such is the idiosyncracies of working with glaze. I love the red on the mug. Bright and cheery. Yay, Dugan's mom for requesting it!