How fun is this bowl? FUN! I think i just really want it to be spring. Today is Easter Sunday so, if you celebrate, Happy Easter! This bowl was created by rolling out a slab and then texturing it with this really cool rubber brayer I purchased from tjmaxx (ya...tjmaxx is pretty much awesome) then i placed it on a hump mold and added some more texture and little feet. I let it set up for a day and trimmed the rim and smoothed with a sponge! easy peasy! but it looks sophisticated. I want to do more with these new hump molds i have.
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I am really excited about this bowl! It isn't completely my design. I get emails from ceramic arts daily and this one really inspired me! I had to try it. Martha Grover makes a pot similar to this one and she was my inspiration. Martha and I's work is very similar so it's no suprise that I would have loved that email. I am by no means saying I am as good of a potter as Marth, but we do share the same respect and longing for clay with movement and soft edges! I think if you look at this weeks bowl and compare it to the past couple bowls, it fits right in.
I threw a bottomless ring on the potters wheel then let it stiffen up. Then i pulled it into an oval and attached a base to it. I then cut out some feet and encouraged the clay to "ripple". I love this form. So many of my favorite pots are oblong and oval in shape! I think it's probably just because it's something different, but who cares. :) This bowl was so fun! And "uniquely functional" lol. It's a yarn bowl! I threw the bowl pretty normal, just trying to keep it more vertical than wide, then i let it dry and trimmed the bottom. Then came the fun part, I carved out this pretty leaf design. The idea is that the ball of yarn can sit in the bowl and then the string is fed through the carved out stem and out through the leaf on the tip. I do not knit, but had a wholesale order to fill and decided to make an extra one for the blog! I think it's a perfect idea for what I specialize in- "uniquely functional ceramics"!
Ok, I LOVE this bowl! I seem to be in a floral theme, but that's ok! maybe spring will come early haha. Truth be told, I had no idea where I was going with this bowl when I started. I threw a medium sized bowl on the pottery wheel then set it aside. Then, I threw a ring of clay without a bottom. I used this ring to create the "petals". After joining all the four petals, I realized I could have just thrown a bigger bowl and then cut out the parts I didn't need and then I would not have had to join all that clay (time consuming), but then again, I wouldn't have come up with this design that way either. They way I came up with this Oval Flower Bowl was a sort of a trial and error approach. I just cut of parts of the ring and held them up to the thrown bowl until I saw a pattern that I liked. At first this bowl was very geometrical. Then I added then swoops and curls along the rim and that's when I started to see "flower" and when I started to like the pot. But there was still something about it, so I squished in the sides, creating an oval and BAM! it hit me, I liked it! :) Sometimes good things just happen. I let the clay speak to me on this one, and it paid off. It's gonna sound weird, but I think this chunk of clay wanted to be an oval flower bowl :)
OK, I know it looks kinda weird now, BUT I have high hopes for glazing. The raw clay color really takes away from the soft floral look I was going for. I just really want it to be spring. I think that's why I made this bowl. I am not sure what you could use it for. Maybe a serving bowl or mabye for keys. I like how drastically different the two sides are and i love the wavey rim and the linear texture. Can't wait to glaze this one :)
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Pots In UseI love seeing handmade pots in action! Functional pottery has stolen my heart. I intend to explore that love story a little more with this blog. Follow along if you want to see an talk about functional pottery on a deeper level! Archives
April 2015
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