Maia plays with Legos

Craig has a Sun Conure named Maia, we bought her around Easter time. She's a neat little bird, very attached to him, and she likes me too. I was doing some moldmaking with Legos the other day, and she was very interested.... so I gave her some to play with. That little ratchet jaw of hers can take chips out of Legos! So I had to take them away from her.

"What's that, Mom? Can I have it? Please?"

"It's Yellow! Like Me!" 

"Doesn't taste like banana... actually, it doesn't taste like ANYTHING!"

Pour Horse Pottery-- a new blog

I'm not one to jump into new technology. I stick a toe in the water, pull it back out, look for sharks. Go up to my ankles, stand until the tide pulls most of the sand from under my feet. Then, and only then, do I venture out to my knees.

Knees, mind you. Nothing higher. Can't tell what's in that foamy water down there. Could be starfish, could be stingrays. Caution is the name of the game.

Sometimes, because of that, I hang back and see what other people are doing, and how it works for them. Let them find the hazards! I'll be waaaaay behind them, still rolling up my pant legs and stowing my sandals on the cliff.

When I started Yasha's Bonsai Blog, I didn't know for sure what I wanted to write about. Or whether I would write at all, once the novelty wore off. Would blogging become a burden? An unfulfilled promise, like many early business endeavors? Or would it take over my life?

The answer is, neither. It's not a burden, and it doesn't take too much time. With a decent camera, and a better understanding of how to edit and upload photos, it has become a very easy way to communicate with people. Not too many people follow the blog, but enough to make it worthwhile.

But now, my ambivalent name (intentionally non-Pour Horse since I was wary of having to do a lot of business posts) is becoming a problem. It just doesn't tell anyone exactly what the blog is about. So I have decided to split the blogs. Yasha's blog will be about the dogs and home life, cooking, etc. Even a little more personal stuff... I may share more fun things there. And the new blog, Pour Horse Pottery, will be all business, and all ceramic ideas/techniques/tips. It will also be a place to discuss older molds, such as the PH editions, and the Marcher Ware editions. A place to chronicle the factory information. And a place to show off new work!

So please join me over there....www.pourhorsepottery.blogspot.com I'll begin posting tonight, and will set up all of the feeds and subscriptions in the next few days.

See you there! Have a great weekend!
Joanie

Super-Matte on a September Day

(click on photo to enlarge)

When is a matte glaze even more than a matte glaze? When it is 'super-matte"! A load came out of the kiln this morning with two matte glazes pieces in it, and I am stoked! They are not what I was intending to do.... but the kiln gods were kind and they decided to give me a special present!

This Toot Sweet, by Adalee Velasquez, is a Traditional SCALE miniature mare, which means that she is about the size of an Owynn, a bit smaller than a Dafydd. With a kind, gentle expression and an explosion of typically mini hair, she really has a lot of fun possibilities. I will be producing a few for sale (because I made the master mold and traded labor for one mold) and this is the first one that I am offering! She's up on MHSP now.


(click on photo to enlarge)

What is so special about this glaze finish? It makes her look like a Royal Worcester or an Animal Artistry or Horsing Around matte bone china! She has a much whiter, cooler tone to her colors, and the feel is delicious! It is smooth but very, very thin. All of her details stand out like a crispy bisque but the glaze is smooth enough to cover and protect her. Her eyes are glossy, and her nostrils and hooves are satin finish, little touches that give her a realistic feel. As I explore this new glaze, I will be playing with those kinds of details.



(click on photos to enlarge)

The other horse to come out of the kiln in super-matte is a Dafydd, but he was already spoken for! He looks so much like my RW "Palomino" that I wish that I could keep him! :-)


(click on photo to enlarge)

Joanie

If Stormys were made of chocolate...

(click the image to enlarge)


This one would be Moonstruck! That's one of the tastiest chocolates in the world, and this Stormwatch is an incredibly tasty, rich, deep and delightful guy. He took a total of eight firings, and several weeks to complete... and he challenged my new china painting skills, but he's done! He was custom made, step by step, overseen by his new owner and will be on his way on Monday.

Several people have asked whether I will show the full photos of these Stormys, instead of just bits and pieces. Well, maybe later... but for now, it is the right of the new owner to show them off, or not to. Every new owner has received a set of photos that she can use to show her horses (if anyone needs them again, or in a different format, let me know!) All of the photos are also being kept in a file, using the horse's final name, so that I can keep track of what was done, who received it, and what the horses name was when it left here.

The next Stormy will be going up to auction, and I will be splitting the final auction price with Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig... (sssssshhhh she doesn't know this yet....) I have a couple of colors in mind, but if you would like to see a particular color on a ceramic Stormy, send it along. I'm always looking for ideas!!

Joanie

I like my bacon smoky, not my compressor....

There are just certain things that we all take for granted every day. We sort of assume that the refrigerator is keeping things cool, we expect that the oven will make things warm, and we don't spend our nights worrying about whether our compressor is going to catch on fire tomorrow.

I hate fire (strange, for a potter) and am extremely suspicious about anything that is likely to burst into flames. I've been known to wander out to the workshop in the middle of the night in my nighties if I wake up and smell something unusual. I have good reason to worry... had a couple of incidents that really made me wonder if I was perhaps not paying proper homage to the fire gods or something.

One time, at the big model horse show held by Sheryl Leisure called "Jamboree", I was giving a workshop on glazing. It was either pins or Boxing Shires, can't remember which. Anyway, Jamboree was held at the Pomona Fairgrounds, in a giant Fairgrounds building. I had asked about plugging in my little kiln... (his name is Sumer, by the way) and they pointed me to a sort of janitors closet that had a steel sink, a few mops, a tile floor, and... a plug. So, that's where I set up the kiln. When the workshop was over, I filled the kiln with the little glazed items, and the last thing I did before they locked the door to the fairground building is turn on Sumer. Little Sumer. All along, clicking along in that little closet in that big old building.

In the early morning hours, suddenly the hotel (which was next to the fairgrounds) was awakened by sirens, and all of the power went off. The entire hotel... full of Jamboree attendees... the whole fairgrounds... sirens wailing in the distance. What did I immediately think of? Poor little Sumer! Had he caught fire? Had he shorted out the building??? OH NOOOOOO..... My second thought was, "Sheryl is going to KILL ME!!! Heart beating, I panicked... what in the world am I going to do?

A few minutes reflection, and a look at the sun coming up, and common sense came to the rescue. Sumer had shut off hours before, and indeed was probably quite cool.

We found out later that it was actually a car accident that had taken out a power pole.

Scared the pee-wadden out of me, though. (It's a family word...but click the link for a possible meaning... who knew??)

Anyway, incidents like that do make you realize that electricity, heat and fire are all very good drinking buddies and like to play pranks when they hang around together too much.

So, today I headed out to the workshop early, because a horse needed just one more touch up of color. Just a leeeetle bit. Not more than ten minutes of spraying. The compressor began to act funny... clicked on, then immediately turned off. On..click... off.... went out to look at it (since it is noisy, it lives in a little Rubbermaid bin behind the building, that has ventilation and a hose that goes to the workshop airbrush station) Looked fine. Went back in and tried again, and it did the same thing... then I heard a long, low screeeeeeech and I headed back out to the bin. Sure enough, it was smoking and smelling like burnt rubber. DAMN!! BLAST!! Turned it off, ran in to get the son, and we took it out to where it wouldn't cause any harm if it suddenly burst into flame. Which, of course, it didn't.


(on the left is the naughty Husky compressor, on the right is the new Emglo)

So off I went to Orco (I call it 'the hardhat store' because it has contractor tools) and came home with a good, dependable Emglo. This is the kind of compressor that I had for ten trouble-free years. The stupid Husky is headed for repair, and then will be the back up compressor. Naughty Husky. Go sit in the corner. Bad boy.

Anyway, after that bit of excitement, back to work this weekend. And both kilns are firing tonight...

Moldmaking makes me weary...

Day seven of moldmaking...
my back hurts
my neck hurts
my arms hurt
my hands are dry and itchy
my Birkies are covered in plaster shavings

I've made a LOT of molds. Here is the tally so far:

2 Kulfi molds
2 Toot Sweet head molds (I owed Addi a head mold, one that I made before was not so good)
1 Toot Sweet body mold
2 Taboo head and tail molds
1 Taboo body mold
2 Dafydd tail molds
1 Dafydd body mold
Partial Brownie body mold
Partial Brownie head mold
Partial Brownie leg mold

One more day and I can stop doing plaster for a while, having gone through 90 pounds of #1 moldmaking plaster. Just finishing the Brownie body, head, and legs and one more Taboo will get me to my goal for this session.

Then, on Friday, I will start with the rubber mold of Little One. I am going to document the process of rubber moldmaking of Little One for a possible article in The Boat, so it will take more time since I will have to pause for photos and writing text each night.It should take about five days, depending upon the weather, since one pour of rubber has to cure for at least 12 hours before doing another one. Then I will go up to Santa Ana and pick up another 100 lb bag of plaster, and do some more plaster production molds. Another Dafydd, an Otto, another Brownie, and maybe two Little One molds should about polish off half of that bag, then we'll see.

In the meantime, here are a couple of little tips for those of you doing plaster molds. Most of which you would know... some of which you might have forgotten... you may have a better method but these work for me.

1. #1 Pottery Plaster has a mix ratio of 100% water to 150% plaster. In other words, you want one and a half times as much plaster as water, by weight. Always put the water in first. Quickly sprinkle/disburse the plaster over the surface of the water... don't dilly dally. Then, let it slack for several minutes.

2. Fresh plaster is smooth, powdery and mixes well. You can feel that it is very soft. If your plaster is grainy, or rough textured, throw it away. You're wasting your time. It won't seal well with the mold soap, and the mold will stick together and possibly risk your original.

3. Apply soap with a soft flat brush, without diluting the soap if you use some variation of PlasterLube. Smells a bit like saddle soap. Apply cleanly, don't flood near the edges, brush it on and don't foam it or agitate it. Wipe with a clean, just slightly damp natural sponge. Reapply like this, twice. Don't apply it to fresh plaster too soon... the plaster needs to set up well. Wait until the plaster has cooled, at least half an hour after pouring it. Otherwise it doesn't seal, and will stick.

4. If you have to do any scraping of the fresh plaster pour, such as removing small blemishes or cleaning up the edge along the model, then take a clean, almost dry sponge and wipe the area that you scraped. This seems to settle the particles down and makes a better seal when you hit it with soap.I didn't used to do this but I swear, it helps.

4. If you sealed the edges of your mold, so that you could remove plaster that might run around the edges and stick to the sides. scrape off the soap when you finish your mold. Sealed edges never evaporate the water from casting as well as unsealed edges. Took me a long time to figure that out. So anything that you can see from the outside when the mold is closed, should not be sealed with soap when you go to use the mold. Just scrape it with a flat metal blade, anything handy. You can tell when the soap has been scraped off.

5. Keep your sponges separate, never dip the soaping sponge (used for large areas, not for the areas nearest the model) into the water. Never dip the water sponge into the mold soap. It dilutes the mold soap, and by the end of the day the soap won't be able to seal anymore. Just as your pour your last pieces, just in time to ruin the whole mold... so watch that mold soap dilution!

6. Rub a finger tip dipped into mold soap onto your mold boards as you begin boxing up your mold. Even with acrylic or well sealed wood, the mold soap will help to release the plaster and keep your boards in good shape. Don't bother to wipe it off... just rub it on like you would grease a muffin pan (obligatory food reference)

Speaking of food... Carlsbad now has a hand dipped chocolate store. Not as good as the one in Boise, but pretty good. A piece of chocolate after a long day of moldmaking does help.

Oh, the photo above? Yasha supervising, of course. On our newly sodded back lawn.

Foamhenge

What does $848.00 worth of foam look like?
Funny you should ask....

I was down to TWO BOXES worth of foam last week, a frightening low supply. Though I don't do as many horses every month as I used to, still.... it's like having two boxes of Mac'n'Cheese in the cupboard. Just call me Old Mother Hubbard....

Since I'm not doing OF production now, which generally meant one horse shape produced in quantities of about 300, I can't predict what configuration the foam needs to be. Some horses are narrow and straight, some have a turn or outstretched limb, some are much smaller. So, this time I ordered blocks of foam that would completely fill a box that is either 12 x 12 x 10 or 14 x 14 x 10. Each block is either 12 x 12 x 4.75 or 14 x 14 x 4.75. That means that each horse will have a hand carved hollow in which it rests, for maximum protection-- and maximum flexibility. Surprisingly, the foam prices didn't go up as much as they could have. Each foam block is costing me approximately $5, so each horse takes about $10 worth of foam. (the smaller pieces are a little cheaper, the larger ones a little more, of course) That's only $1.00 per box more than I paid two years ago. Since the foam is a petroleum product, the pricing varies with the changes in oil costs. I won't complain about a buck!


The order is a total of 200 blocks. It will ship fifty large horses and fifty small horses. It's about all that I can store comfortably, along with the small 7 x 6 x 6 foams that I still have left over from mini production.

Today, Bob and I will store this foam up in the loft, before it gets dirty and dusty. The weather has turned warm... it's the first really warm, sunny day so far this summer! So it will be hot work, but very rewarding, like a squirrel hoarding its nuts.

I'm also making molds this week and next week. Made one and a half yesterday, with a nice long stretch of good weather and unencumbered days ahead to do what needs to be done. I'll be making the rubber mold on Kelly Savage's "Little One", for a limited production custom run. I've also made a new mold for Kristina Lucas's "Kulfi" and will be shipping it to her as soon as it is dry. There has only ever been one Kulfi mold, Kristina didn't intend to do him in production, but with our advanced techniques and knowledge, she wanted to take him out and dust him off and consider re-issuing him. Sia has been a ripping success, now Kulfi (one of the best-loved of Kristina's horses) may make a comeback! I will also have a Kulfi mold, after Kristina gets hers, and will take a VERY limited number of custom requests into consideration. I want to play with more color options that are now possible! I'm also making new molds on Dafydd, Pixie, Brownie, Taboo, and maybe Otto.

Off to work!
Joanie