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One might wonder why I used a non-transparent glaze here. I was hoping that if I did it thin enough and feathered it light by rubbing it with my finger, I’d get a bright color and not lose the design.  Almost worked.  Our only translucent glazes at the Tempe Arts Center are clear and celadon–not my favorite colors.

When I do surface decoration on a piece I’ve thrown, I almost always have to work freehand, because I rarely remember to bring books and references from home to the pottery studio. For this piece, I remembered to bring books, and I used mehindi designs. I like mehindi designs because they are adaptable, and because the feeling of trailing a paste through a jacquard bottle into one of these traditional Vedic designs feels comfortable.

The red didn’t turn out very bright on all of this. This glaze, when it works, is quite stunning, but it needs to be reduced, so sometimes you have to hope the kiln gods favor you.

This cup, unlike the celadon colored one, is functional because it did not crack in the kiln. Shrank quite a bit, but that happens with porcelain.

Laurie Nessel did a demo in this class where she made these amazing little netsuke rabbits out of a solid lump of glass.  These were my attempt.  I think I need a lot more progress if I’m going to make rabbits that look like rabbits. Maybe the glass was too hot, or maybe I pushed too hard, because they look like they have rolls of fat. I nicknamed them after the famous paleolithic fertility fetishes.

Two more eggs, nesting in the glass nests I made.  I tried to think of nice colors for the Easter eggs that I would like to look at, but I couldn’t think of any, so I made these ugly ones instead.  It occured to me that I could make natural colored eggs, but wouldn’t it be easier and better to make that out of ceramic?