2016 Progress Report: May

May was kind of a weird month. The very beginning of the month was beyond stressful. I had to have everything ready for my show and I was running into delays at every turn. I ended up getting everything done just as the reception for the show was starting. Sadly, there aren't any pictures of the show in this post. I hope to discuss my show more in a future post. Anyway, after the show, everything slowed down. The urgency to get work down and the amount of work the needed to get down slowed. Then after that, there was nothing. I took a break for almost the rest of the month. Despite spending half of the month working and half of the month resting, I still managed to get a lot of pictures.

5/1/16: By this point, this is almost finished. There is still some painting work left to be done.

5/3/16: The front side is almost finished. I made the mistake of using open acrylics. I used them because I thought it would be easier for the paint to find it's way into the pores of the textured surface. Unfortunately, this also meant that the surface would take a long time to dry. My progres was delayed by half a day.

5/3/16: About 14 hours after agonizing over the paint that wouldn't dry, we're finally finished here with the polymer gloss work done. The felt around the hooks and on the bump that will touch the wall has been glued on. Usually, the end of a project for me is when hooks and wires are in place. Eternal Light took a little over 2 months to complete.

5/3/16: Like Eternal Light, Mary's Dilemma is also finished. The final paint work, polymer gloss work, felt, and hanging wire is all in place.

5/9/16: This finally got fired. I actually like the saggar pieces I did this year better than the ones I did last year. This still needs polishing at this point.

5/9/16: This one turned out to be my favorite saggar piece. My experiment with the skiiny saggar pieces was a success.

5/9/16: This one is nice too. Unfortunately, the end broke off because it got stuck in the foil that I removed after the firing. I came up with a solution for that later on.

5/10/16: I'm liking how this turned out so far. It was definitely one of the more challenging ceramic pieces I worked on this year.

5/10/16: This was also a somewhat challenging piece to work on. I had to make sure it could stand up without falling over.

5/10/16: While this piece was a little challenging, it was created rather quickly. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I like it but at the same time, I feel it looks a little too much like the work I was doing back in 2013.

5/10/16: This is ready for a raku firing.

5/10/16: This is also ready for a raku firing.

5/10/16: This is the final piece that is ready for the raku firing.

5/10/16: The first raku firings of the year are complete. This turned out almost perfect.

5/10/16: This turned out to be one of my favortie pieces so far this year.

5/10/16: The glazing turned out better than I thought it would but I still have mixed feelings about this piece.

5/11/16: Three sets based on three glaze combinations I used on projects both this year and last year. Expect these little dish pieces to go on sale later this year.

5/11/16: The glazes look alright. Now I want to see what this glaze combination will look like on some of those dish pieces that I made.

5/11/16: The glazing on this on turned out okay just like the others.

5/11/16: Again, just okay glazes.

5/18/16: I'm starting work on the labeling proces for Forces of Nature. It's a little tricky this time around because of the location of the label. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that again.

5/18/16: The label for The Zen Tree was one of the easier labels to work with.

5/18/16: The Climb also had a somewhat easy label.

5/18/16: This was actually a pain in the ass to deal with I might have done the measurements wrong or something like that.

5/18/16: The Light Molding Paste work begins. This is somewhat tricky because I want it to be presentable but at the same time, I want to keep the molding past out of view if Someone were to look at Forces of Nature while it is standing up. That wouldn't make a lot of sense to some people but it does to me. I know it is there. I want it to be neat. But I don't want you to see it in a show.

5/18/16: The molding paste work on here was easy because there wasn't much to do.

5/18/16: Lost In Confusion's molding paste work was a little more difficult just like placing the label was. I had to enough of it away from the lettering which was a little difficult because of the position of the label.

5/31/16: I took a little break from working on this stuff. I'm back at it. The label for To The Sky fit well enough.

5/31/16: Another small label. Not too hard to work with.

5/31/15: A small label that was alittle difficult to work with. There wasn't a lot of room for it.

5/31/16: I prefer the labels with the simpler titles. They're always easier to work with.

5/31/16: I slightly messed up with the measurements for this label. I think it'll be just fine though.