In the pottery studio, there used to be a postcard with a photo of this really cool freaky hare sculpture.  Naturally, when I went looking for it to use as a reference, it had mysteriously vanished.  I did this anyway, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I wanted that weird blobby texture (and I think I got it) and I wanted it to look a little like the rabbit would happily devour your brains if it could. As a bonus, it even stands up, and it didn’t crack. I call this a win.

I didn’t feel much like throwing this class session, so I decided to try some alternative pottery ideas. This is one of them. My friend had some plastic embossing strips for ceramic artists, and she used them to make a cool mug. I made this mug, which didn’t turn out quite as cool because there was some separation at the bottom and now it won’t hold water.  So now it’s a pen holder.

The photo on this didnt’ turn out as well as I had hoped, but it was either take a crappy photo or not get it photographed at all, because I’m using my table for another project.  This plate is actually twice as large as the others, because I used a larger meat tray.

After I stamped the image, the second step was to cut them out and lay them gently into styrofoam meat trays.  I pushed the clay into the corner to get a neat shape, and then trimmed the edges.  I’ve done a lot of these. It’s not as easy as it looks.  The less you touch the clay, the better it looks.

I’ve resisted using rubber stamps in my pottery before, preferring the ones I’ve made myself out of bisqued clay, but I shouldn’t have. Rubber stamps are available in so many different designs, and there are things you can do with stamps that you can’t do with any other tool.