KenSwinson.com

Pottery Intensive Update – 6.4.2020

My big, exciting event for this summer was going to be a week long pottery workshop at the Arrowmont School of arts and crafts. It was a gift from a friend, and was going to be a really special treat. To be safe during the coronavirus, the workshop was cancelled. I was really looking forward to visiting Arrowmont, and having a pottery intensive experience. My hope was to get better at throwing, and to learn a few new surface decoration techniques.

a view of the potters studio focused on 2 shelves holding newly thrown mugs

just because I can’t go to a famous arts and craft school, and learn from a popular potter, doesent mean I can’t still have a pottery intensive experience. I decided to give myself a summer of pottery making!!! So far, I’ve thrown about 20 mugs.

a shelf with unfired pottery, including pots decorated with a house, a dog, a goat and other animals

Most of them are being decorated in a style, called sgraffito.
If you haven’t already seen it, here is a short video explaining the process:

an unfired pottery plate, with a decoration saying, we will get through this together

I learned a new technique to throw plates. Thanks @Dennis Allen ! So now I’ve been working on a few sgraffito plates.

an unfired pottery plate with two decorative squirrels

This squirrel design is based on one of my linocuts.

unfired pottery plate with blue decorations of 2 birds on a tree branch

Another plate…with BLUE underglaze.

These are works in progress…they still need to be glazed and fired, but I’m really excited about making plates…and hope to the have enough to fire the kiln soon.

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