Post #779672 by danlovestikis on Tue, Sep 12, 2017 7:14 PM

hang10tiki thank you for the video and the lovely sunrise.

Prikli Pear thank you very much. It was so hard to pry information from artists when I started that I immediately began to share as I taught myself. I did have some help from Babalu, he showed me how he did his glaze tests and I've done them that way ever since. I was helped by kingstiedye when he set me up with a friend who showed me how to make a 2 piece mold that day is on page one of this thread.

Mainly I have to thank Gecko for "cutting me loose". I used to sculpt things such as my Bloody Maori and send them to him to make back around 2006. But one day he said that he had to get back to doing his own art and I had to make the leap. 15 ceramic books later I started on the first Sacramento Crawl mug after Psycho Tiki D asked me to make it. I still do that with the 8th one about to circulate. I'm so lucky he asked because I love doing this mug each year.

How's that for answering how long I've been doing ceramics. On my own since August 2010. Prior to that it was all Sculpey clay for display only in my husbands collection.

Time to post.

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This took several days. I decided to make sure there were no thin or skipped areas so I did four layers of under-glaze that does self glossing when fired.

I decided to do them all the same blue Caribbean glaze so that mugs could be mixed and made into a set.

I set up to do four mugs at a time. I first did a layer that was sideways.

I did four and then waited for them to dry so I could do the next layer up and down. This was taking too long. I got out the rest of my turntables and did the next two layers on more of the mugs.

Now I had eight mugs that I could do up and down strokes on with the second layer.

I keep cleaning off the wheels and the bottoms of the mugs as I go.

I decided to put them out of the way so we could have a place to make dinner. I let them sit over night.

The next day I spread them out and did the last two layers then put them on the stove and started the next group of eight.

End of the day and put aside for the next dinner.

Next morning it started all over again.

I did eventually get all 36 mugs to have four layers each of glaze. I sure hope it stays in place and doesn't run off at the bottom. Under-glazes are supposed to stay put but they don't always behave.

Just when I think "I did it" I remember the two huge bowls.

Cheers, Wendy