The First Batch!

Finally, some photos of what I've been doing over the past several months! Unfortunately, the lighting in my apartment is not the best and my camera tended to make the photos more red than they should have been. So, I edited the photos a little so that they would give a better representation what the pots actually look like. Never take a photo as more than a representation. With that in mind, enjoy! 

Above: These pots are probably a little smaller than you may think. The bowl is a little bigger than a large cereal bowl, the cup is about the size of a slightly small mug. The creamer is a fair bit larger than your average creamer.

Above: These mugs are a little smaller than most mugs you will find. I found out after I made them that clay generally shrinks 10-12% as it goes through the process of drying and being fired in the kilns. They do fit very nicely in the hand, though, and I think they would make great mugs for a small cup of coffee or a cup of tea.

Above: The two pots on the left are my first "jars". I suppose that if you found a cork that is the right size, you could stick it in the top and use the pot as a holder for a liquid of some sort. Unfortunately, the one to the far left developed a large crack in the bottom (which I will show below) because I did not compress the bottom well enough. ALWAYS COMPRESS THE BOTTOMS OF YOUR POTS SO THAT THEY DO NOT CRACK. Especially if they are plates.

 Above: Both of these pots developed cracks on their bases since I failed to compress them well enough (see below).

Above: I think that cracks can occur even if you do compress the bottom of your pot if other variables play out wrong, but compressing the bottom of your pots does make the chances of cracking a lot less. Plates tend to develop cracks far more often than pieces with small bases. My teacher said that even some of the best potters lose up to 50% of their plates due to S-cracks that develop as they are drying or being fired, despite the time they put into compressing them.

Above: Okay, back to some pots that came out pretty well. These pots are actually about the size of a medium sized mug. I mentioned the one to the right in my previous post. Notice the light blue color and the speckled brown base. The tone looks much more like a light blue in better lighting. I used the exact same glazes on the pot to the left. It's amazing what kind of variation you get with glazes.

Above: I really like the way this mug turned out. It has a very nice red and cream color with a hint of blue that rings around the center. I took a picture with the handle facing out so that you can see the way the blue dripped down the handle. It has the same glazes on it as the mugs I showed above (the round ones). Like my other mugs, it is smaller than a normal coffee mug, but I think it is a nice size. 

Above: This is an inside view of the round mugs I showed above. They have a rich blue that melds with the earthy-red on the inside.

Above: I mentioned these bowls in my last post. The blues really stand out in the right lighting, but fade a little in the dark. I failed to get a side-shot of the bowl on the left, but it is smaller than the one to the right--about the size of a large cereal bowl.

Above: This is a shot of the inside of the cup I showed in the very top photo. It has a very rich blue on the inside. The other mug is the one that I showed with the handle facing out. You'll notice that I did not fill the inside with blue.

Above: This is another angle of the specked-brown and purple pots I showed above.

Above: I did not show this mug in my other photo. It is about the size of a normal mug, but has a much wider mouth than most. It would be great for holding a small helping of soup or just a cup of coffee.

Above: These are some pendants I made out of the extra clay I had from throwing pots. They're actually really fun to make and I've got a completely different set that I plan to make quite a bit more elaborate (color!).

That's all for now! I should have some more pots coming out of the glaze kiln soon. Should be a pretty constant stream of photos from here.

Glazing!

It has been a long time since I first started this blog. In fact, it’s been so long that I forgot my user name and password and had to spend thirty minutes trying to figure them out. So, you may be asking: why so long?

The answer is fairly simple: I’ve been in the pottery studio! When I started this blog, I did not have any finished pieces that I thought would be worth photographing and then posting to the world. Now I have some photos of pieces that I actually like and I’m planning to post them soon. Until then, I would like to throw out a few things that I have learned since my first post: especially concerning GLAZING.

Glazing is not cool. Why? Because I can throw a pretty decent piece of pottery on the wheel and then dip it into a glaze and totally ruin it. Until recently, almost every piece that I glazed came out of the kiln looking like someone grabbed a cow pie and smeared it all over the sides. Fortunately, I think I’ve found out why!

Glazing is a scientific process. It is NOT like painting. It has a lot more to do with what kind of oxides are put into the mix than about what kind of colors are mixed together. In painting, all you have to do to get a green is mix a yellow and a blue. In glazing, mixing what you think to be those same two colors could give you a brown, a different colored blue, or a green depending on what kind of ingredients are in the glazes being mixed. I actually just got a pot back that I had first dipped in a Royoko Cream and then into a Plumb Purple. The result was a pot that was a speckled brown at the bottom, where only Royoko Cream had been, and a light blue on the top where the two colors had mixed. I glazed another pot with a brownish glaze and put a blue glaze on top of it. When I made the second dip (into the blue glaze), I heard a sound like an acid eating through paper. I didn’t think much of this until I saw the finished product. It came out VERY different than I expected. The glazes ran together forming a feathery look with blues, browns, and creams all mixed together. On the inside of the pot, where I had put mostly blue, the glaze came out a blue that I can only describe as a feathery-ocean color. In a darker setting, it looks like a semi-dark blue with slight hints of light blue, but in a lighter setting there are light-blue highlights that catch the light making it look almost like an ocean with feathery froth moving around in it. The overall color reminded me of the blues and reds that appear at sunrise in the Garden of the Gods, CO, when the sun has not quite come over the horizon. I really liked how it turned out, but I have no idea why the glaze came out that way. I have had other pots that have done the same thing but in the wrong way. They turn out looking like the dumpster outside my apartment: all the wrong colors in all the wrong places.

So, two lessons to learn from this: 1) Do not try mixing a lot of different glazes together until you KNOW how they react when they are mixed, and  2) make sure you experiment with glazes on pots that you do not care about before you put them on pots you do care about. Following these two simple rules will save you from turning a great pot into a “wall-smasher”. Maybe I’ll post some pictures of some of my wall-smashers so that you can see what I mean. Until then, stay dirty!

So, what is Mountain Mud?

So, you’re here and you’re probably wondering what Mountain Mud is. Well, there is a coffee shop called “Mountain Mudd”, but this is not a coffee shop and my mud is not sophisticated enough to have two d’s stuck on the end. My “Mud” is real mud. The kind you get your hands dirty with when you’re digging a hole to china or making mud pies on a rainy day. My mud is dug out of the ground, processed to take out impurities and shipped to my workshop where I use it to form pots, jars, vases, bowls, cups, mugs and all sorts of other things that can be used in the kitchen, garden, backyard, or wherever. This site is a place for me to share what I have made with the world. I am selling most of the pieces I make and will give prices and shipping info where necessary.

Mountain Mud is also a place for learning. While I am selling most of the pieces I post here, each completed piece is a lesson learned and I hope to share what I have learned. I also hope to get input from the outside. There are many people who know more than I do about “mud” (clay) and how to make things with it. I would appreciate any and all feedback on my work and also any ideas for new pieces, creative names and other methods for making them. That said, I hope you enjoy your visit!