It’s been a busy few weeks here. The best part of March was seeing my kids while they were on their respective spring breaks. Before, after, and in between, I did some clay work.

I’ve been back in design mode with a few new pieces. The pig face tile was in need of some companion tiles so I added a couple of wings and some legs to make a set. I liked the way the set came out so I used the flying pig as a feature for a new palette design.

The pig palette has presented some construction challenges. First, it’s the largest palette I’ve designed so there are issues like warping and weight to consider. It’s also thick due to the high relief carving of the snout. I’ve tried both pressing and slip casting but neither has been a complete success. I prefer the pressing approach for two reasons. First, porcelain slip is not always available locally. Secondly, the plaster molds are very large and slip casting is rough on plaster (it breaks it down quickly). The biggest problem with pressing palettes is the weight of the piece, especially with the pig’s thickness. The best solution I’ve come up with is hollowing out the back of the pressed palette at the thickest point. It’s relatively labor intensive but I don’t plan to make too many of these. I’m also in the process of experimenting with three new porcelains clay bodies to see if one is less prone to warping.

This past month, I’ve also designed the spring palette of my seasonal palette series. I tried a few designs and the house finch in a rose bush was the one I liked best.

Most recently, I designed a new sea otter brush rest. I’ve been thinking about this design for awhile and finally put it to paper (and subsequently clay). I think these will be especially cute paired with the octopus palette.

The next step will be to make finished pieces from each of these new designs. So far, just the pigs tiles have been glazed but I hope to be listing the palettes and sea otters in my Etsy shop very soon.

This blog hasn’t been getting a lot of love from me lately but I really want to be better about posting more regularly in 2024. It’s been a creative diary for me for a long time and I enjoy looking at old posts from time to time to bring back memories and revisit ideas.

I’m still designing paint palettes but I took a break from the seasonal palette series to design this Octopus Palette. I’ve been wanting to design another octopus tile for a long time. My original octopus is very “reserved” with his simple figure 8 shape and prayer like pose. This octopus, while contained in a simple circle, is more active than his predecessor. His long expressive arms spread out to create a variety of wells for separating and mixing colors.

The octopus’s two front arms meet to form a heart. A notch beneath the heart provides a place to rest one’s brush.

I’ve been spending a lot of time making new paint palettes. After the honey bee and dragonfly palettes, I designed a few simpler ones based on patterns in nature, specifically animal patterns. These patterns were inspired by fish scales, snakeskin, and armadillo bands.

Most recently, I’ve been working on a series of seasonal palettes. First came the “cloud” palette for fall. It features a cluster of interlocking rain clouds hovering over a large rectangular well where an abandoned umbrella sits surrounded by puddles. More recently, I’ve been working on the winter themed “polar bear” palette. It features a bear emerging from a forest of tessellating pine trees as he trudges through the snow.

While I’ve been super busy with these projects, there have been a number of setbacks, mostly due to my aging kiln. I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new one several weeks ago. As I eagerly await its arrival, I’m going to shift gears and spend more time painting. Honestly, not having to think about the technical aspects of ceramics for a little while will be refreshing.

I’ve been really busy making palettes this summer. A big thank you to Amber Lane who has kindly included my Honey Bee Palette in many of her photos and videos on Instagram.

I love making the white porcelain palettes but I’ve also missed playing with colorful ceramics. This past weekend’s weather was beautiful so I set aside the time to layout my latest tile table top. The idea for the design came from walking my dogs along the path at Golden Gardens beach.

This patio table is one of the first pieces of furniture James and I bought together. It’s over 20 years old and a little rusted and banged up so it’s more than ready for a makeover. The mesh top is a good substrate for adhering the tiles with thinset. In order to grout the tiles, I’ll tape the underside of the table, apply the grout and remove it when the grout has hardened a bit.

I started making tiled tables as a way to use clay that is too hard to press into molds but is soft enough to roll into slabs and then cut into tiles. They’re also a great way to use up clay bodies and glazes that have been sitting around the studio for a long time.

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the more physical routine of tile pressing and work at a slower pace on something. These sgraffito bowls take a fair amount of time to carve but it’s a relaxing, almost meditative, process that yields a very useful item.

This rabbit is the first new tile of the year. Designing tiles is the most fun stage of the the making process; I wish I had more time to do it. I usually try to add three or four new designs every year to my shop but, since there’s not much room in the studio for more molds, it may be time to retire some of the older designs. Even though I feel like my work is evolving in some ways, there’s a lot of sentimental attachment to those tiles. It’s going to be a challenge.

As a tile maker, I make a lot of plaster molds.

This is especially true lately as I’ve been pouring, as opposed to pressing, tiles and palettes. Unlike regular clay, there are chemicals in the casting slip that break down the plaster. This means I need to make new molds fairly often.

The idea for this palette came from an artist named Mona who asked me to make her a white dragonfly tile because she thought it would work well as a small palette. She was right – it made a really good mini palette because of the negative space surrounding the insect.

I’ve been wanting to design another palette so I sketched some ideas incorporating a pattern of dragonflies. Since it is a relatively large piece, I’ve been experimenting with different types of clay in an effort to minimize the warping often associated with larger tiles. I love the white color of porcelain clay for making palettes because I think it provides a great surface for mixing colors, but I decided to try a couple of stoneware clay bodies too. I was taught that stoneware, especially with sand and grog, is less inclined to warp than porcelain. Surprisingly, I did encounter some warping with one of the stoneware clays as it dried. Fortunately, the palette flattened out during the glaze firing.

I glazed the porcelain palettes with clear glaze and the stoneware palettes with white glaze. The white stoneware palettes provide a white surface for mixing colors but they have a more rustic appearance. The darker clay peaks through the white glaze and accentuates the carved details.