donNA's Pottery

Look! I'm being creative!!

Late in the summer of 2003, I began taking pottery classes at Rich Moon Pottery Center in Roanoke. Don't know how many of you know that I took a ceramics class in High School, but I always wanted to learn more about the craft.
I started learning to throw on the wheel with brown stoneware. After spending time making lots of bowls, I moved on to handbuilding. I am determined to make my own set of dishes for my new house and I at first I decided that I wanted to make them square. I switched to white stoneware, which did not work out too well. The clay has a fine grain and tends to warp when large, flat pieces are dried and fired. I struggled for a long time before giving up the ghost
I mentioned to Rich Moon that I was considering taking classes at another place as they were doing Raku firings. Soon after, Rich found a place for me to learn Raku from another pottery instructor he knows. I drove over a mountain and through the woods to a beautiful horse farm where I learned how to fire pots in an updated version of this ancient Japanese craft. I will babble more about this later. In the meantime...onto my pottery...

There are thumbnail photos of groupings of different pieces along with a description of what is in the photo. Click on the thumbnail to see a full size picture of the pieces.

Here are a few bowls I've done. They were all thrown on the wheel. The three darker bowls are brown stoneware which were dipped in two different colors. I think these may be the earliest pieces I made in the class. The lighter bowl is white stoneware with a celadon glaze with turquoise drizzled on it. Mugs with really big handles...LOL. The mugs are wheel thrown with extruded handles. The green and blue ones are white stoneware dipped in two colors. The lower one is brown stoneware with an inprint of an actual oak leaf on it which was underglazed in blue before dipping in glaze. I manipulated the piece to try to form it into a square...for my set of dishes.
Two teacups with saucers. I'm quite proud of the lower cup, I actually use it for tea all of the time. The saucer's a bit big for it, but the glaze looks so cool on them both. The upper is actually more of a mug that was both my first attempt at a pulled handle and a footring. The pattern is a badly executed Celtic knot design that I carved into the piece through a band of underglaze (a technique called Scraffito {sp?}). It doesn't look too bad, but the bottom cracked in the kiln (I have a problem with leaving the bottoms of my pieces too thick, which causes them to crack). I made the matching saucer so that I can use it for a flowerpot to grow herbs in my kitchen. Here are some of the lovely warped dishes I've made. The one on the bottom is kind of a deep platter with handles. I like the shape, but I need to keep working on the decoration. Both that one and the small white and blue plate to the upper left of it are actually imprinted with real leaves. I painted the imprint with an underglaze before glazing the pieces in white. The leaf I used is one from a redbud tree. The other pieces I decorated with craft stamps with underglaze before glazing. I've tried both press and slump molding these puppies and they keep warping, which is quite frustrating. My next step is to try a clay with more grog, or grit, in it. Wish me luck.

These were fun to do and turned out very cool. There are these plants with HUGE leaves that grow everywhere down here. I took one and pressed it into a slab of brown stoneware clay and cut around it. I then took it and shaped it into a bowl or similar container and let it dry. After bisque firing, I underglazed them, sponged on one color glaze and dipped them in another. I made another one that cracked and Mom claimed it because the glaze and shape appealed to her (luckily, the crack happened along the vein of the leaf at the top and looks kinda natural). My favorite is the top one, which was the first one I made. I really got into leaves for awhile. this piece is a bunch of redbud leaves that I overlapped and pressed into a bowl to make a bowl of leaves. This took a long time to do since I imprinted the leaf on both sides of each piece. I'm pretty fond of these heart-shaped leaves as the shape is easy to cut out and doesn't leave a lot of thin pieces that are easy to break off. Only problem with this piece is that the bottom is almost totally rounded, which makes it a bit wobbly at times. I'm also not too sure about the color. I've gotten positive feedback on it...but I'm not too fond of poopie green...LOL.

These greenmen are kinda funny since I actually didn't use leaves for the shape or design on these. I took a drawing of a maple leaf and cut out around it. The shape was pressed into a bowl with a reverse face form on the bottom and the face was then further sculpted and carved on the front (I'm not much of a sculptor, but they're recognizable). I then carved the veins into the leaf. After bisque firing, I painted and sponged off dark green underglaze into the carving and dipped the piece into celadon glaze. There are feet on the bottom in the shape of tubes. I had intended to make these either for tabletop or wall display, but I'm afraid that they don't hang well. These two are made for a couple of friends of mine for Christmas and they should get them sometime before next Christmas (sorry Raine and Matt). I made two more after I got requests from my mother and a friend in Scotland.

Raku Pottery

I've gotta say that these were the most fun to do. Raku is a form of firing developed in Japan hundreds of years ago. The pottery fired this way is not really food safe and meant only for decorative use. Traditionally, the only pieces fired this way in Japan were tea bowls and tea pots for ceremonial use. You can find plans for building tradtional raku wood burning kilns on the Internet. While the pieces are red hot, they are removed from the kiln and placed in a container of combustible material. Often, they are placed in water when still quite hot in order to set the glaze colors. I've collected various Raku pieces and was quite excited to learn this method of firing myself.
When I did these pieces, they were fired in a kiln with a propane flame and a peep-hole where we could watch them and make sure that they were removed from the heat at the proper moment. We took the red-hot pieces out of the kiln with metal tongs and placed them in pits we had dug in the ground and lined with newspaper. The pieces were placed on the paper, which burst into flame, and immediately covered with a lid. Depending on the glaze effect desired, the piece was either exposed to the air several times (oxydized) or kept covered (reduced) to keep air away from the glaze. When the color desired was achieved, the piece was quickly cooled in water.

Often, many pieces are destroyed in this process due to the stress of the quick cooling of the pieces. Luckily, only a couple of my pieces developed cracks, which I repaired with epoxy.

These two pieces were glazed in a crackle glaze. this is one of the two different kinds of Raku glaze. It is highly oxydized and carbon from the burning paper and sawdust is rubbed into the crackles. The bowl here is my rendition of a traditional Japanese tea bowl. It is a pinch pot bowl and the foot ring was a coil. The other piece is a funky kinda weird slab formed vase that was the first piece I fired. I'm very happy with it and was surprised that my first attempt came out so well. These two are also pinch pot formed bowls, but without the footring. They are glazed in two different glazes with a copper reduction. If the glaze is starved for oxygen when the fuel of newspaper is burning in the pit, the flame draws oxygen out of the glaze, which brings out the copper sheen in the glaze. Unfortunately, I made these pots a bit thin and they both cracked a bit. The colors turned out so great that I just had to preserve them, as best as I could, with a bit of epoxy.

Both of these guys turned out a so great that I'm actually more than a bit proud of them. After I made the pieces, I found out that flat, slab forms are actually the most likely to break in a Raku firing. Still I soldiered on and fired them anyway. The red color in the lower one is highly desired and a bit hard to accomplish. They are lighly reduced, bringing out the colors in the glaze as well as a bit of copper (and silver in the lips and eyelids of the oval one) to highlight them. I do have holes in the side of these two and intend to hang them with copper wire. Their names are "Happy" and "Disgruntled." Poor Disgruntled does have a crack along his right cheek, but I piled on the epoxy and he should survive.

Unfortunately, Rich Moon Pottery Center in Roanoke closed in the summer of 2004. Luckily, I got to have a ton of fun and make a lot of great pottery before that happened. I was just starting to make some awesomely cool stuff right when the center shut down.
This is a selection of the pieces I did in 2004 at the Rich Moon Pottery Center.

I'm still into doing bowls. Both of these were wheel-thrown. The reddish brown bowl is decorated with a wax-resist design on the rim. Basically, I dipped the piece in the red glaze, painted the zig-zags on the rim over the red with wax and then painted green glaze over it. The turquoise bowl was an experiment. I tried to get a marbelized effect in the clay by mixing together white and brown clays. I wedged it a bit too much, but you can still see a bit of the marbling. I glazed the interior clear and the exterior with the turquoise glaze. Still with the bowls. I'm especially proud of the blue batter bowl with the leaves. I pulled the handle all by myself and I am very happy with the sponged on glaze on the leaves. The blue and white bowl I made for my mom for Mother's day. It was originally supposed to have a lip, but I made it too thin and it collapsed. To fancy it up, I did the cut-out design and dipped the top of it in midnight blue glaze after dipping the whole bowl in white. My instructor, Rich, was shocked that it didn't crack along the cutouts. The last bowl was one of the last pieces I made. I just wanted to try out all of the glazes and the bowl itself wasn't a very impressive piece (I had since thrown larger and nicer bowls). I think the crazy glazing turned out cool. I dipped it in white and then applied the colors over it with a squirt bottle. Fun!
I experimented a bit with funky decor and shapes of mugs this year. I have already given away several of them, but these are kinda cool. The little bluish mug has an applied leaf decoration that the glaze was wiped off of before firing. The other was done in a dark green with a very bright yellow dipped at an angle over it. The two other pieces are my early attempts at objects with necks. Unfortunately, I never did move on to large pieces with this. both pieces are have wax resist decoration, like the bowl above. I think I shall keep maple syrup in the little pitcher. Ok, I was really into wax resist decorating for a bit here. I made the brown flowerpot with the turquoise trees for my mom when she saw a similarly decorated flowerpot at Emerson Creek Pottery. It turned out OK for a first try at this style of decorating. The other flowerpot was a pain, because I did two colors with the wax resist. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I think it will look cool in my new kitchen. The jar has a stencilled pattern. I bought a salt-glazed small pitcher at a trade show and this almost matches it exactly. Yes, the pitcher has a moose too.

These are three of my favorite pieces. The green piece with the dragonflies is a candle lantern. It took me FOREVER to cut out those little dragonflies, but it really looks cool when you light a candle inside. My fishy jar was my first attempt at throwing a lid, so you can forgive me for not fitting it exactly (I'm someday going to try to grind it down to fit) The applied fish come from a mold I carved and made myself. The glazing is a combination of dipping, dripping it on with a squeeze bottle, and sponging (the blue on the fish). The footed bowl was one of the few pieces I have here that were not wheel-thrown. This is a pinch pot, with coiled feet. I dipped it in red, did the wax resist spirals, poured a pewter glaze over the outside, and then completely wiped the glaze off the feet. The inside of the bowl remains red. I love this piece. This is the sign for my new house. The tiles are completely handmade. They warped a bit in firing, but Dad made a nice frame and grouted it, so it looks really nice. I painted the number freehand, but the decorations are stencilled. I was hoping to do tiles for my dining room table, but I know better than to make the tiles myself. One project when I go back to pottery is to buy bisqued tiles and paint those. This way, I will have a flat table!

I took a few months off (moving into the house and all) and have been taking classes at Spun Earth Pottery in Forest, VA. Spun Earth is a totally new experience as it is a working pottery and not just a learning center. Unlike the glazes I was used to, these are all made from scratch and the results are never uniform. I'm still trying to come to terms with that...LOL. No photos of the new stuff from there yet. Probably with this year's Christmas Card!

Here are a few bowls I've done. They were all thrown on the wheel. The three darker bowls are brown stoneware which were dipped in two different colors. I think these may be the earliest pieces I made in the class. The lighter bowl is white stoneware with a celadon glaze with turquoise drizzled on it.	Mugs with really big handles...LOL. The mugs are wheel thrown with extruded handles. The green and blue ones are white stoneware dipped in two colors. The lower one is brown stoneware with an inprint of an actual oak leaf on it which was underglazed in blue before dipping in glaze. I manipulated the piece to try to form it into a square...for my set of dishes.
Two teacups with saucers. I'm quite proud of the lower cup, I actually use it for tea all of the time. The saucer's a bit big for it, but the glaze looks so cool on them both. The upper is actually more of a mug that was both my first attempt at a pulled handle and a footring. The pattern is a badly executed Celtic knot design that I carved into the piece through a band of underglaze (a technique called Scraffito {sp?}). It doesn't look too bad, but the bottom cracked in the kiln (I have a problem with leaving the bottoms of my pieces too thick, which causes them to crack). I made the matching saucer so that I can use it for a flowerpot to grow herbs in my kitchen.	Here are some of the lovely warped dishes I've made. The one on the bottom is kind of a deep platter with handles. I like the shape, but I need to keep working on the decoration. Both that one and the small white and blue plate to the upper left of it are actually imprinted with real leaves. I painted the imprint with an underglaze before glazing the pieces in white. The leaf I used is one from a redbud tree. The other pieces I decorated with craft stamps with underglaze before glazing. I've tried both press and slump molding these puppies and they keep warping, which is quite frustrating. My next step is to try a clay with more grog, or grit, in it. Wish me luck.
These were fun to do and turned out very cool. There are these plants with HUGE leaves that grow everywhere down here. I took one and pressed it into a slab of brown stoneware clay and cut around it. I then took it and shaped it into a bowl or similar container and let it dry. After bisque firing, I underglazed them, sponged on one color glaze and dipped them in another. I made another one that cracked and Mom claimed it because the glaze and shape appealed to her (luckily, the crack happened along the vein of the leaf at the top and looks kinda natural). My favorite is the top one, which was the first one I made.	I really got into leaves for awhile. this piece is a bunch of redbud leaves that I overlapped and pressed into a bowl to make a bowl of leaves. This took a long time to do since I imprinted the leaf on both sides of each piece. I'm pretty fond of these heart-shaped leaves as the shape is easy to cut out and doesn't leave a lot of thin pieces that are easy to break off. Only problem with this piece is that the bottom is almost totally rounded, which makes it a bit wobbly at times. I'm also not too sure about the color. I've gotten positive feedback on it...but I'm not too fond of poopie green...LOL.
These greenmen are kinda funny since I actually didn't use leaves for the shape or design on these. I took a drawing of a maple leaf and cut out around it. The shape was pressed into a bowl with a reverse face form on the bottom and the face was then further sculpted and carved on the front (I'm not much of a sculptor, but they're recognizable). I then carved the veins into the leaf. After bisque firing, I painted and sponged off dark green underglaze into the carving and dipped the piece into celadon glaze. There are feet on the bottom in the shape of tubes. I had intended to make these either for tabletop or wall display, but I'm afraid that they don't hang well. These two are made for a couple of friends of mine for Christmas and they should get them sometime before next Christmas (sorry Raine and Matt). I made two more after I got requests from my mother and a friend in Scotland.

I'm still into doing bowls. Both of these were wheel-thrown. The reddish brown bowl is decorated with a wax-resist design on the rim. Basically, I dipped the piece in the red glaze, painted the zig-zags on the rim over the red with wax and then painted green glaze over it. The turquoise bowl was an experiment. I tried to get a marbelized effect in the clay by mixing together white and brown clays. I wedged it a bit too much, but you can still see a bit of the marbling. I glazed the interior clear and the exterior with the turquoise glaze.	Still with the bowls. I'm especially proud of the blue batter bowl with the leaves. I pulled the handle all by myself and I am very happy with the sponged on glaze on the leaves. The blue and white bowl I made for my mom for Mother's day. It was originally supposed to have a lip, but I made it too thin and it collapsed. To fancy it up, I did the cut-out design and dipped the top of it in midnight blue glaze after dipping the whole bowl in white. My instructor, Rich, was shocked that it didn't crack along the cutouts. The last bowl was one of the last pieces I made. I just wanted to try out all of the glazes and the bowl itself wasn't a very impressive piece (I had since thrown larger and nicer bowls). I think the crazy glazing turned out cool. I dipped it in white and then applied the colors over it with a squirt bottle. Fun!
I experimented a bit with funky decor and shapes of mugs this year. I have already given away several of them, but these are kinda cool. The little bluish mug has an applied leaf decoration that the glaze was wiped off of before firing. The other was done in a dark green with a very bright yellow dipped at an angle over it. The two other pieces are my early attempts at objects with necks. Unfortunately, I never did move on to large pieces with this. both pieces are have wax resist decoration, like the bowl above. I think I shall keep maple syrup in the little pitcher.	Ok, I was really into wax resist decorating for a bit here. I made the brown flowerpot with the turquoise trees for my mom when she saw a similarly decorated flowerpot at Emerson Creek Pottery. It turned out OK for a first try at this style of decorating. The other flowerpot was a pain, because I did two colors with the wax resist. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I think it will look cool in my new kitchen. The jar has a stencilled pattern. I bought a salt-glazed small pitcher at a trade show and this almost matches it exactly. Yes, the pitcher has a moose too.
These are three of my favorite pieces. The green piece with the dragonflies is a candle lantern. It took me FOREVER to cut out those little dragonflies, but it really looks cool when you light a candle inside. My fishy jar was my first attempt at throwing a lid, so you can forgive me for not fitting it exactly (I'm someday going to try to grind it down to fit) The applied fish come from a mold I carved and made myself. The glazing is a combination of dipping, dripping it on with a squeeze bottle, and sponging (the blue on the fish). The footed bowl was one of the few pieces I have here that were not wheel-thrown. This is a pinch pot, with coiled feet. I dipped it in red, did the wax resist spirals, poured a pewter glaze over the outside, and then completely wiped the glaze off the feet. The inside of the bowl remains red. I love this piece.	This is the sign for my new house. The tiles are completely handmade. They warped a bit in firing, but Dad made a nice frame and grouted it, so it looks really nice. I painted the number freehand, but the decorations are stencilled. I was hoping to do tiles for my dining room table, but I know better than to make the tiles myself. One project when I go back to pottery is to buy bisqued tiles and paint those. This way, I will have a flat table!