Pottery Time: Mugs

 If you haven't noticed, I have been doing a lot more slab rolling and hand building and have not been on the wheel in a while. My first couple mugs I made were on the wheel and they are nice and are ones I kept for myself. But I have really grown to like hand building and slab rolling. I feel so much more in control of the clay, but I diverge, that is not telling you how or why I made these mugs.

I made all three of these mugs as gifts. When I was making them I was most nervous about how the handle was going to stay and hold it's shape and not crack. I started out with some jar molds (I used smallish glass pickle jars for my mold.) and shaped my slab rolled piece around each and attached a circular base.

The make the handles, I did make the slab rolled clay thicker to start out with, but I had to be careful to not have it be too thick or it would not shape as well and too thin and it would not hold it's shape. I cannot remember exactly what I set the thickness on the roller to, I think it was about 1/3, whereas the rest of the mug was rolled at 1/4. I used scratching and slip to adhere the edges of the handles to the mug.

I really like this mug design, so much that I kind of want to make one for myself, but this one was given to a friend for her birthday. I made it in blue (her favorite color) and brown. I had overlapped the rolled slab and made it looks like buttons holding it together. I hand painted the entire piece with under glaze in blue and brown. After the first firing I then drizzled a navy blue color glaze on it and glazed the whole piece in clear.

This one was made as a going away present for a coffee loving friend that I used to have coffee playdates with our youngest kids. I added texture to this clay by using a texture roller. Then I hand painted under glaze of yellow and purple before the first firing. It was actually pretty time consuming to paint each of the insides of the little squares. Then I applied a clear glaze over the entire piece before the final firing.

And finally, this one I added lace on top of the clay as I rolled it out. I did not use under glazes on this one because I wanted it to match the Tall Cylinder Vase I was also giving to this friend for her birthday. She just had her birthday, so I was finally able to share these projects that I had made.

Next week I will share one more project I have finished and then I better get my butt back in the studio and start creating because I don't have any more projects in the works to share. I did just create some coordinating jewelry pieces for a friend's birthday present and will share those soon and I do have some plans to work on some loom knitting projects and will share those with you later too.