(Poor) Tribute to Eric Stearns - Pierced Vessel in Progress

One of the ceramic artists I have been admiring on Pinterest is Eric Stearns.  He does wonderful, precise pierced work, and finishes with beautiful crackled raku glazing.  Here is a photo I pulled from his website, which I would encourage you to visit, for more beautiful work, and information about the artist.

When I threw the spherical piece in workshop, I knew I wanted to do something with it - carve it, pierce it, distort it...  So I considered various ideas (which I may use on the next spheres I throw), but decided on a pierced item, inspired by the work of Eric Stearns.

Here's my go it marking out where I will do the piercings.  I like how it was going at the front / start of the piece :

Then I started to lose the pattern toward the side, partly because I wasn't sure where to take it, and partly because I was getting lazy...

I know now what I would have done to revive the pattern, but after finishing the back, even though it looks too plain and not as exciting as the front, I decided to leave it as is.  It will still be enough challenge to finish it, and will be a good learning experience.

I am thinking to trim the foot (I want to make the base smaller and crisper, and then add my artist's stamp) before I weaken the vessel by piercing it.  Just in case.  I'm not so skilled at trimming yet, and don't want to tempt fate too much.  :-)