During one of our recent hot spells, I decided to experiment with nerikomi designs on my structural style of vases. 
I love how the various brown, red and white clays contribute to the floral and grassy design. This is very labor intensive. But I got into the zen of it, working in my cool house and ignoring the frying pan heat outside.

For the summer, I've decided to switch to a lighter color palette with my glazes.

I love glazing and trying out new techniques. In the pictures above, I start out by aerating the contrast glaze and letting the bubbles flow over the cup onto the tray. I did this two times with different glazes on top of each other.
 I LOVE the randomness of this method! 

In my hands... I made a sphere and then carved the continents thru it. This was quite tricky because the more continents, the less clay there is holding everything together! It has made it thru the first firing and I just glazed it. Keeping my fingers crossed that it makes it thru that firing. If it is successful, more photos to come!

Voila! If you read my previous blog, I showed a photo of a slab of clay with stripes running through it.
It decided to become a sake set with 4 adorably small cups.

I'm trying something new. I call it Organic Sgraffito. Pictured is a slab of clay that has been brushed with black color slip and then patterns drawn through it.

I cut out a piece of the slab to make a cup... with very interesting results! I like the unplanned feel. Look for more of these soon in my website.

The Pasadena Historical Museum sponsored a juried competition Sunday, May 19, with the theme of "Relationships". It was juried by Ardis Willwerth and Jeannette Bovard. Members of the Pasadena Society of Artists entered artwork of acrylics, photography, watercolors, oils and ceramics.

Much to my surprise, I won first place! So I'm tooting my own horn. My piece is titled "Tangled Love" and is made up of two ceramic 'vases' that are tied together with copper wire. The wire does not thread threw the holes in any pattern, but instead symbolize how relationships can become tangled, knotted and twisted. BTW, the pieces are totally functional and can hold water for a floral arrangement.

April is a busy month for me. I'm furiously creating new pieces to have them ready for a couple of upcoming shows.
Thank you to my friends who dropped by the Prom Plus Spring Boutique on Saturday.
Thank you also to those who attended the artist's reception Saturday evening at La Galleria Gitana. That show, "The Spirit of Place" will be running until June 1. It is a wonderful collection of oils, pastels, watercolors, photography and ceramics all having to do with interior spaces. Hope you can check it out!

As promised, I have been doing some more sgrafitto work. It takes a while to experiment with the carving tools... sizes, shapes.... and then see how using different pressure when carving changes the line.

I chose an orchid pattern for this bowl. There are 2 more orchids on the backside. Then I enlarged the general shape outward until they met. I think it looks a bit as if the orchid was dropped onto the surface of the water and the resulting ripples were frozen in time.