Kiln Firing Complete

The kiln had lots of ewenice mugs (all brown) a few white sgrafitto mugs, (with the b&w designs) and some of the new "hot tub" or "fiber" mugs. I shared in a post before that the intent was that they were trying to get out, but they looked so relaxed, I just played on that with the others I made. This first mug was made for my neighbor that raises Nubian goats.
Their bodies would be much easier to sculpt if they had wool..lol. (i didn't do so well on the shape here)


and then sheep...

there's that wool. These mugs were fun to create, but had a few more challenges than the other style mugs. I look forward to trying more of them, it's really fun to watch the characters rise up out of the clay.

Sheep photos

It's been so long since I've posted pictures of sheep, it might seem as though we don't have sheep anymore! It's been hard to get out to get pics of them, and I had forgot how much time I used to spend trying to get good pictures. You can tell by these pictures, that this was a very quick photo session. We have 39 sheep right now, with possibly a few more on the way this spring.


above: Sweet Carlie.
Below: Lil friend.
Little Brown ewe. She doesn't have a name.. there are a few lambs that were sold, but never left here, so they didn't get named. I guess we need to come up with names for these gals -since they've been here nearly a year now. They deserve names.


This little lambs name is "carlies lamb"


Girlie:

These are the two new ewes we bought last fall. Daphne is in the corner with part of her face chopped off in the photo (great photography, huh?) And the other gal - well she's really one of my favorite ewes but I just can't remember what we named her! I'll get her a "HELLO, MY NAME IS_____" tag if I can come up with the name. My mind really is shot these days. I'm hoping it's just the lack of sleep.

This is another little ewe i didn't anticipate being here this winter, so she is lacking a name as well. I am going to have to get creative with naming sheep here.. or maybe buy a baby names book. Wow, that will get the family talking.


And Petey... he was going to leave us in the fall (to visit the butcher) but it's just been bad timing on our part.. when we were ready to take him, it was deer season - and lately, there's just been other things coming up. I was worried he would lose weight when the grass declined and we started feeding hay full time - yet, from the photo, he's either eating ok, or bloated. Maybe it's my camera? I sure don't remember him looking this wide, and one would think that would be noticeable?? Note to self, just in case it's the camera, I sure don't want to have my picture taken with it!

NOT another unfinished project..?

Oh YES IT IS! lol. I could spend a year just finishing up different thoughts and little ideas and projects around here.. and here's another example.

This is an idea that I knew I wouldn't be able to complete for a while (because I haven't found the glaze that I have in mind for it). I went ahead and started it, because if I didn't do it while it was fresh on my mind it would get pushed to that "i thought of doing that" pile.

This is an attempt to carve lil Wyatt onto a handmade tile. The original photo that I used, he was about a year old and had a blade of grass in his mouth. Well.. that ended up looking like a cigarette, so that didn't stay. It was a fun little project to sculpt/carve, but I really need to take a class or read a book on sculpting the mouth and eyes.. I had fun with the rest of it though.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a glaze recipe that will have the look of something like bronze. When it's glazed, I'd like to make somewhat of a simple shadowbox style frame (without glass) to mount the tile to.

I need to focus on a few things, and not be so scattered with things i want to do, but there's just so many things you can do with clay! (and wool...) I just can't seem to stay focused!

Good news though - I'll be opening the kiln today, and the projects in it are completed..

Thank goodness.

A Shepherd's Cartoon

The caption is a little hard to read - "yes, I have a 2 o'clock footbath"