Bonus Pottery Day

It's always a great day when you can enjoy pottery, and we're counting on it.  Today was one of those days.  I decided I needed to go into the studio on a Sunday, to finish up a few of my items, since I have too much on the go, and I want to focus on my big lantern on Wednesday.  I had 6 items I threw on Wednesday which needed trimming and decorating.

I wanted to add some texture, in case I use any of these in the soda firing.  So I slip trailed one of them with swirly lines, and for another, I used my dragon scale tool to create a scale pattern on the shoulder (I realized very quickly that I didn't want to do this for the whole pot) :

I also wanted to try out my poking tool, which I made in the last course, and hadn't tried out yet.  For this one, I also decided not to poke the whole pot.  I think this band around it looks good.

When I look at that photo, I realize that I trimmed that jug like pot on the back right, but didn't end up decorating it.  I was tempted to add a lizard or frog or something.  But I guess I ran out of time today anyhow, it was only a 4 hour drop-in workshop session.

I didn't take another photo of the plate decorated with black and turquoise slip, but I trimmed it also.

I was happy to try out my new 1/2" custom stamp from www.4clay.comhttp://www.4clay.com/.  I'm very pleased with the result, and it will be useful for smaller items, where my 1" stamp is hard to fit or get a good imprint.  Look at this little beauty :

This is not a very good photo of it, but here is my original stamp.  I will still use it for larger items (which is most of what I am making lately) :

Finally, I made some progress on my windswept house, cutting a few more windows and adding a few more birds.  I may do a bit more Wednesday, if I have time, otherwise I think I'm close enough I could call it done.

Who says you can't find love in an abandoned home?  I'm happy with this pair of affectionate birds.  Now that I look at my photos, I realize that I have birds in the upstairs windows, and none in the downstairs ones, so I need to add at least one more.  Or maybe a cat.  :-)  My friend Carol Anne (who suggested the birds in the first place) suggested one on the roof also.