Out of the kiln

The following tumblers were made with this tool, the Ultimate Edger, which I got when I was in Lawrence in May. There's a lot of grog in this clay, so you can also file your nails on the bottom ridge of these cups--double purpose!




This lidded piece was done in May as are most of these pieces and is finally finished.

And a mug.

Pictures long overdue but will post anyway

This was a couple Saturdays ago...the chalk festival, dinner at Lara's and Paul's including margharitas, and the
Mentos/Diet Coke fountain trick--all in one exciting day!

BTW, have you seen the Weezer video featuring Experiment #711? I don't know half the things they are referring to. Guess I better watch more YouTube.

Macro milkweed

Have been practicing with my new camera lately. The first picture is butterfly milkweed with the macro setting on the camera.
This second picture is using an extension tube and magnifying filter (not very good, but just to show as an example).
On this last one, I cropped and tweaked it in photoshop.

After about 20 minutes of shooting, was kind of tired of closing one eye and squinting the other while looking through the viewfinder. Will have to get used to that.

Have more "bug" pictures on my flickr account if you care to look.

So that's what I've been up to and more.



p.s. Will have some pictures of my pottery to post soon, as there are 9 pieces in the kiln.

What made me laugh today

Thought this was funny after seeing Pat Robert's new commercial.

Juicy airmass

The following is a statement from our local paper weather section for watches, warnings, and advisories:

THUNDERSTORMS WILL BECOME MORE NUMEROUS THIS MORNING AND TRACK SLOWLY SOUTHEAST ACROSS EASTERN KANSAS TODAY. HEAVY RAINFALL WILL BE POSSIBLE DUE TO THE SLOW STORM MOVEMENT...AND JUICY AIRMASS YIELDING HIGH RAINFALL RATES.

No, not another juicy airmass!!!

Cruet and new glazes

The cruet is with Coyote Pistachio Shino glaze. Am really pleased with it and actually knew what glaze I was going to use while making it. It's really exciting when I decide what glaze I'm going to use while making the pot, as sometimes I spend a lot of time deciding which glaze to use on already bisque-fired pieces. Decisions, decisions.

The vase has Highland Tweed glaze and came out a little bit lighter on the picture than it actually is. If you do pottery, you can probably guess that I didn't plan on the faceted bottom third. It flew off the wheel while not properly secured while trimming and got dented..thus I proceeded to creatively mask the dent with a cheese cutter.

These bowls have Copper Wash on the inside and Black Licorice on the outside.

Lilies, the photographic triangle, and b&w TV

The first asiatic lilies are blooming in my yard.

Am also learning about the photo-graphic triangle and will be able to take better pictures of the lilies now that I have finally figured out how to set the metering mode on my new camera.

Also figured out how to revert your color TV to black and white...view it through your camera set on monochromatic. Yes, that's Merrill and our forecast.

The birds and the bees, etc.

Shot some photos of random "wildlife" with my new camera on my yard this past week. Below includes the annual shot of the dragon plant/voodoo lily.














Also stumbled upon a rather unusual set of short films by Isabella Rossellini regarding "the birds and the bees", actually bees and praying mantis and spiders, etc. If you're interested, click on the red www site below in the picture...But warn you not to let your kids watch. They are very informative. I would personally recommend "The Bee".

Photoshop disasters

Click here for an article on digital forensics and how to spot photo editing.

I also found this video from the photoshop disasters blog.
Caution: It almost shows "someone's bosom", or at least I think it does since I don't speak German and can't be sure.


The basketball picture was in Sports Illustrated. Oops!

Wordless Wednesday