Triangle Party

I'm getting back to a few images from the last photo shoot, which I'm still trying to get onto the website in the near future.  It feels like I'm opening my Christmas presents before Christmas here, showing you all the good photos before the website gets it's yearly over-haul, but that's the way it goes sometimes.  These things all take time (and money)!

Since last year, I have continued with my triangle themed work but was trying to simplify the pattern.  I love the quilted pattern, but felt totally bogged down in the re-creation of the design for shops or to sell on my own.  If you know anything about how my designs come about, you'll know that this pattern is still a ton of tape, but that the triangles are a little bigger.  I simplified the colours, limiting it to the lighter shades of glaze that I have available.  We all know that glaze in the kiln likes to run vertically, this being a pattern that needs to be more precise and less 'painterly'.   Where the white glaze meets the coloured glaze is still a little fuzzy (which I like because it looks less like underglaze or decals and more like glaze), but less obvious then with the darker shades of glaze. 

Anyways, I'm still having fun with this design and am making a bunch of it to send off to The Flock in New Zealand! I have a few wholesale orders I'm currently working on and a huge project that I was doing a cost estimate for this past week.  We'll see if I get it in the end, but if not, it was one of those crazy opportunities that came across my desk that blows me away with the possibilities. 

I hope you are having a great week!

A quick preview

I pulled out my first kiln-load and quickly shot these photos on a dark day in the studio, but here's a sample of the work I had been glazing last week.  The tall striped vases didn't make it into this kiln firing, save one, but I've got some new work coming out of the kiln later this week and then more by Saturday of the Eastside Culture Crawl.  It's a bit of a scramble this year to feel like I'm going to have enough work for my 2 shows.  The emails of special orders and reserving work have started and I've already sold out of the short striped mugs I had made for this weekend.   

I had been really excited about trying different glazes as the 'backdrop' of my pots but I'm not as keen on it as I thought.  There are some things I like about it- I like the way the yellow and turquoise triangles play with each other, and thought it was a no-brainer to include a few little white triangles in the mix, but really regretted it when I pulled it out of the kiln.  On the other hand, the white mug with the greeny/grey triangles with hits of yellow, feels much more successful although I think it could be fun to play around with the colours.  Some of the edges between the glazes got a bit fuzzy and not so straight, partly due to the glazes I used.  I'm also not quite convinced about the reverse bottle vases.  I have now tried the turquoise, saffron and grey (which was a complete flop).  Maybe next time I'll try to pair glaze colours together...