We attended seven classes at the Midwest Ceramic Show last week. Laura Gilbert, who is one of our students, attended the show and also took a class. This post shows what we made. Watch for upcoming workshops on all of these projects.

Underglazes

Sunflower Plate is a Duncan Certification Workshop taught by Dru Woodward.  The background is a light blue satin glaze which we applied before the design. After we traced the design onto the ware, we painted it using underglazes. Mine is on the left and will be more brilliant after it is fired.  This was painted on a 16″ plate but the designs can be put onto any plain piece — a smaller plate, bowls, vases, teapots, and so on. (Carol took this class.)

French Quarter Watercolor wine cooler is also a Duncan Certification class taught by Dru Woodward. This design was painted with E-Z strokes onto a plain piece of bisque. Mine is waiting for the kiln. After firing, it will be clear glazed on the outside and color glazed on the inside. This was a lot easier to do than expected. For example, did you know that you can paint your buildings solid and then erase the windows with a white pencil eraser? (Carol took this class.)

Fashenhues

Bass Fish Advanced Fashenhues Class. This class showed us how to use metallic paints and blending to obtain gradual shading between colors. I purchased a complete set of 23 Fashenhues opaque metallic colors to supplement the few that we have from Duncan. Metallic stains are not wiped back and can be used with our inventory of Duncan opaque colors as well as with the Fashenhues. No, I do not have the fish mold. However,  we can teach this technique on another piece. (Carol took this class.)

Garden Turtle Advanced Fashenhues Class. This class also used metallic paints which were applied with a sponge and blended to achieve this unique design. This turtle is a little different than ours but the technique will work just as well on ours.

Basic Beginners Fashenhues Class. Ruth Ann Jackson Perkins is our distributor and the one whose classes I attend. She offers an assortment of crosses and of fairy houses in her beginner Fashenhues class. Laura Gilbert attended this class and this is her Dogwood Cross. Yes, I ordered the mold.  We will offer this workshop at the end of June after the mold comes in. Watch for it.

Clay Club

Clay Flower Workshop with Michael Harbridge. Carol took this workshop last year (left) but her flower blew up in the kiln. What the flower is supposed to look like when finished is in the center. And then there is Jim’s flower that he made on Friday. It will not be dry enough to fire for another week. Then he will add color by glazing and refire it.

Clay Puzzling with Michael Harbridge. In this technique you press clay into two-piece molds to get your basic shapes. It eliminates the need for a pottery wheel. Then you embellish the molded piece with additional clay.

Jim made a fish and Carol made a spider. However, they are not quite finished and are currently wrapped in plastic so they don’t dry out.  Above are some pictures from Michael’s Facebook page.

Here are the clay puzzling molds that we purchased. You can see the small ball opened on the lower right corner. The clay puzzling tools show some leaf mats and an extruder. We bought some pattern mats last year to use on the flowers and have some other tools for modeling.

Here is a picture of open weave garden balls that are made with puzzling molds. Instead of inserting solid pieces of clay you use long
“snakes” that you roll with your hands. These can be made with the same molds.

KIDS KRAFTS & FAMILY WORKSHOP

We expect the kids will especially enjoy playing with clay.  So plan on a clay workshop Friday evenings at least once a month.  Jim will be teaching these classes and Carol will assist as needed.  Class size is limited to eight due to the space required and number of molds available.

Carousel Creations
Where having FUN is why we come!

Each year at the show we learn something new.
Just so we can bring it back to you.