Sunflowers

sunflowers, cut freehand, still green (wet clay)

I am indulging in my obsession of making tile to put on the outside of our house. I aspire to make our house the tiled version of the Watts Towers in the northwest (not really, I am not delusional. Not to imply that Simon Rodia was. He was INTENSE. I'm not intense either.) I made some birds, now I am moving on to flowers and leaves.

sunflower, leatherhard, waiting for bisque firing

I really should have made a template for the petals. Cutting them out freehand means that each petal has to go back exactly where it originated, which means transferring each one precisely every time I handle the flower..from green carving onto the tile setter to bisque fire, from the tile setter to my work table for painting the colors, from painting the colors to the wareboard to spray the glaze, from the wareboard back to the tile setter for the glaze firing, from the glaze firing to the wall for installation (hardest part to track). Gah, I'm an idiot.

this one won't be as complicated as the others to keep track of

a template would have been easy to make

I am pretty excited about these though. I think I'll make Hollyhocks next, trending toward tall flowers for big walls. These will be the stems:

I'll use three of these per flower, glazed green

these are the leaves, I'll incise veining and glaze them green like the stems

Side note:

Don't forget that we are having an Open Studio on Saturday, sign up over there to the right---> ('click here and I'll send you a postcard'; but actually, I'll send you an email this time because there's not time for a postcard now. Why didn't you sign up before, hmmm???) and I'll send you an invitation with the particulars.