Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Three More Mugs!

Hi Folks,

Got a few more mugs done for you. These are some beauties...

Mug #1: Pirate Girl returns! With two poses, treasure chest and crossed sword and flintlock pistol inside. $75 plus shipping:

Sold, thank you so much!


 
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Mug #2: Earth Goddess with Victorian Sun and butterflies, dragonfly pattern on the bottom. Spectacular piece! $75 plus shipping:
Sold, thanks again!   


 
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Mug #3 Celtic Ferns with small dragonfly inside. Little bit smaller at about 12 oz, $60 plus shipping.
Sold, thank you very much!


 

Gen 2 Steel MikroStiks

Happy Wednesday!

It's gloomy and overcast today, and supposedly we will finally get some rain tonight and tomorrow. Good day for a sale I think...

Today I have some steel MikroStiks for you. These are the Gen 2 version, and they are all stamped I believe. There are some smooth ones and a few with light raw bar finish as well.

Steel MikroStiks will run $55 plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for slipping by today, and hope your week is going great!

All gone, thanks very much!



 

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Zr QuickDraws

What a fine Tuesday morning out there today! The air is crisp and tons of leaves are turning gold. I'm sure I will be raking them up in a week or two.  

Today I have a handful of Zirconium QuickDraws for you. A cool little tool and not one that I am likely to make again anytime soon. These are generously stamped with a wide variety of images.

Zr QuickDraws will run $65 plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for popping in today and hope your week is shaping up to be a good one.

Gone in a jiffy, thanks so much!


 

Monday, September 23, 2024

MugShots!

Howdy Everyone!

It's a nice one out there again today. We have had a very mild September so far, and the constant rain we experienced over the summer has been replaced with rather dry conditions, bordering on a drought. Amazingly, the coast got huge rain storms this weekend and we got nary a drop! Anyhow, the drought has made for beautiful weather, but I have had to water the pitiful end-of-the-season remains of my garden nearly every day.

A few years ago I sent out a pile of photographic prints from my camera hobby. They have ended up getting traded around for years, and I have often had people asking me for more. One of my favorite cameras over the years has been the marvelous Fuji Instax which is similar to the old fashioned Polaroid but a little smaller in print size. Recently I decided to try a series of new images and I thought I would see if there was interest in them. The nice thing about instants is that they are so immediate, and the Instax prints will fit in standard baseball card sleeves. The prints can also be name stamped, so I can make these all signed collectible originals by simply taking them to the anvil and lightly striking them.

This first group is a collection of images of my hand made mugs and other ceramics. I have all sorts of subjects here, and some of the images include the steps in making the mugs, some include the finished products. I fooled around with half frame images for a lot of these so that you can see both front and back of the mug, or details such as the interiors. Most of the shots are printed on my favorite Instax Rainbow paper, but I have some black and white images as well. Super fun project! If I have a lot of interest I will make some other series from my collections such as tools, knives, antique cameras and wrist watches. 

MugShot Prints will run $9 each plus shipping and the link is below. Thank you so much for stopping in, and for your continued interest and support!

First round is gone, thank you so much! :)





 

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Three More Mugs!

Happy Thursday Folks!

Man oh man, it has been so crazy busy lately. I'm sick of it and just want to crawl back into my shop. Luckily it looks like all my dentist, lawyer, eye doctor, house chores, lawn mowing, air conditioner removal, shopping and socializing agendas will be over tomorrow and I can settle back into some production.

Coming up I will have some unique photo offerings so please stay tuned for those. People have asked me repeatedly for photos and I have come up with some for next week. Also coming will be titanium E115 tools, hopefully by the end of next week.

Today I have a handful of new mugs for you. These are in the usual 13-15 oz range and have a variety of fun images.

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Mug #1 Bird Mug with cute Squirrel, Chanterelle mushrooms and Feather inside. $75 plus shipping:

 

Sold, thank you!

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Mug #2 UFO, Alien, Planet with Face Hugger inside! A classic for sure...$75 plus shipping:
 Sold, thank you!

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Mug #3 Welsh Dragon, Crossed Swords, Pirate Vixen and Treasure Chest inside! Arrrr! $75 plus shipping:
   Sold, thank you so much!

 

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

Pottery Seconds!

One of the most frustrating things in ceramics is when you put in a whole lot of time and everything is going great, but in the final glaze firing something goes wrong and the glaze isn't perfect. To be honest it was one of the aspects that drew me to metal work 25 years ago and made me give up pottery. With metal you are so much less likely to make mistakes and usually minor problems are correctable. 

These three large mugs have small glaze defects where the glaze was thin, or it got bumped when they loaded the kiln, but they are still spectacular. Small discount on them. ;)

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Mug #1: 12 oz Kayak Girl with Cat Tails, Wooden Dock and a Frog inside. $55 plus shipping

Sold, thank you!



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Mug #2: The Great Train Wreck! Two trains speeding towards each other with an explosion in the middle. Dynamite bundle inside!  $60 plus shipping

 Sold, thank you!


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Mug #3: Rampant Lion with Castle and Lion Door Knocker with a Crown inside. $60 plus shipping
Sold, thank you so much!

 

Three More Mugs

Hi Everyone,

Another stellar day here in New England. I will savor these next few days because there is definitely a crisp feel to the air this morning. Yesterday I was riding around and I spotted a couple of maples that are starting to get a hint of orange on their leaves already, so it won't be long. 

Today I have three smaller mugs for you with a short and stocky shape. These are around 9-11 oz so would be great for an evening cocoa with a splash of Kahlua and dollop of whipped cream. For those times when you still want a little something but don't want to be up all night heading for the bathroom, lol..

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Mug #1: Simple nature theme with gorgeous butterfly inside. $55 plus shipping

Sold, thank you!

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Mug #2: Ants! 11 oz with a detailed moth image inside. $60 plus shipping
 
Sold, thank you so much!

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Mug #3: Watery Worlds! Another 11 oz piece with Gator, Heraldic Dolphin, Great White Shark and Heraldic Mermaid inside. Super cool one... $65 plus shipping
  
Sold, thank you!

 

Tuesday, September 03, 2024

Mugs Round Two

I'm back! :)

Here are a couple more...

Mug #1:  Welsh Dragon with large Cannon, Crossed Swords and Castle inside. $70 plus shipping

Sold, thank you!

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Mug #2: Apocalyptic UFOs, Alien and RayGun! $70 plus shipping
 Sold, thank you!

 
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Mug #3: Winged Lion, Feather and Pegasus with Compass inside. $70 plus shipping
Sold, thank you!

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Mug #4: Pirate Vixen, Tropical Island and Sailing Ship with Vintage Sun inside. Arrr! $70 plus shipping
Sold, thank you so much! :)
 

Four New Mugs!

Howdy Folks,

What a nice weekend it was here. It was cloudy and warm for much of it, but today the sun has returned and temps are super comfortable, even chilly this morning. Typical September!

I built several dozen mugs this summer, but it will take some time to get them all glazed and finished. This is just a handful that I was able to get done in the past week. More will be coming as the weeks go on so stay tuned. :)

We had some trouble at the studio lately with many of our staple glazes running out. Because many old time glaze recipes call for special natural minerals that are mined, some of the mines have run out and now glazes have to be reformulated with the new minerals that are available so that they will melt out correctly and also "fit the ceramic bodies". It is very tricky because there are four different clay bodies at the studio so the glazes need to be able to work with all four of the different clays. Small tweaks in the recipe can make a huge difference in how the glaze interacts with the clay body and it doesn't always work out.

My friend Irene at the studio has been working on making a new line of glazes for us. So far the green and the blue are great, but I did ruin two mugs with another of the reformulated glazes, so not all of them can be trusted yet. As the fall progresses several other glazes she is working on will get worked out and I should be able to get some other colors going. My challenge is that I have all these cool textures and stamps that I'm working with, so I need translucent finishes that will allow you to see highlights of the images through the glassy surface, lighter where the glaze is thinner and darker where it pools up.

These latest mugs are coming out great. I have a good hand building routine down now and I have been able to get more consistent sizes and shapes going with this series. Most of these have three images stamped around the mug, and then a fourth image inside which often gets filled in partially with melted glaze. Bottoms are all textured and are given an iron oxide wash to give contrast and color. They are about 13 oz on average, which is a good size for coffee, and I tend to roll the slabs out thickly so the mugs are quite hefty and will keep the heat in a bit longer. I've been having a blast telling little stories with combinations of images so expect some very interesting and unexpected subjects coming up.

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Mug #1: Cows and CowGirl. Really fun images with a barbed wire border. This piece is slightly smaller at 12 oz... $65 plus shipping:

 

 Sold!

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Mug #2: Aliens and Facehugger! Fun space theme on this one and you know how much I love my aliens... Also a little smaller at about 12 oz. $65 plus shipping:
 
 Sold!
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Mug #3: Tropical Island Shipwreck. I've always loved the idea of being castaway on a tropical island and doing the whole survival thing. This piece has a cool message in a bottle image floating inside. :)  $65 plus shipping:
Sold!

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Mug #4: Nature Mug: Mushrooms, Moth, Bird with a Beetle inside. This mug/beer stein is a bit bigger at about 15-16 oz and is on a iron bearing sculpture clay body which acts to darken the glaze a little bit. $70 plus shipping:
Sold! Thank you so much!

 

Friday, August 30, 2024

Titanium Atwrenches!

Happy Labor Day Weekend Everyone!

Hope you all are getting ready for a nice relaxing weekend ahead. It finally cooled off here and I'm looking forward to much more comfortable days and weeks for the next month or so.

I've been super busy with a zillion things pulling me in multiple directions for the whole month of August. I have managed to squeeze a lot of work in though and am happy to report that there is a nice batch of titanium E115 tools underway. I also just got a batch of Zr E115 tools cut, so those will be coming this fall. I just got done prepping out a batch of timascus Hangman hooks which will be getting stamped. I have a group of Zr mini Hexy beads coming in a month or two. I still have a big batch of steel Prybabies awaiting grinding and those will be coming along this fall as well. And there will no doubt be some odds and ends coming up shortly too...and lastly, for mugs, I am working on getting the first of several dozen through the glaze firing, so I should have a few coming up soon.

Today I have a sweet batch of Titanium Atwrenches for you! I have made these in both steel and Zr in the past but I never got around to titanium. So here we are. These are all stamped with a wide variety of images and they have gorgeous contrasting anodizing effects. A few have light raw bar texturing...I do have a handful of plain ones available if you don't like colors and stamps, just email me. And there are a couple of lefties available as well.

Titanium Atwrenches will run $85 plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you are staying cool and getting ready to wind down this weekend! 

All gone for today, thanks again folks!