April 10

Today was really relaxing.  Mostly I think because I was really sleepy.  I went into the ceramics studio this morning, and there was a class in there that’s really loud and annoying, and I felt like I couldn’t deal with it, so I took my plates that just came out of the bisque kiln and I painted blind contours on them in the art studio.  Then I took a nap.  Then I came home and slept for more than four hours.  I think I’m getting sick.  Tomorrow I’m going to trim the four spare plates that I made.  Even though I don’t think the other ones are really going to warp as much, they’re all kind of flat, and the new ones have more of a curve to them.  After I trim the plates I’m going to start throwing the cups.  I’m probably going to make around ten mugs, or cups, I’m not really sure how I want them look – handles or not, rounded or tall – but tomorrow I’m going to sketch it out.  Maybe I’ll make two different kinds of mugs.  Tall drinking glass type ones and ones that are more like mugs.  It’s funny having ceramic drinking cups that aren’t mugs.  You want them to be glass.  Maybe it’ll be good to have nice tall water glasses made in porcelain. 

            Painting the blind contours on the salad plates today made me really psyched for the project.  I can’t wait to get them glazed with the clear and get everything into the kiln.  I’m glad that I get to use the electric kiln.  With the gas kiln there’s a lot of really cool variation that can happen with the glazes, but in the electric kiln everything just stays exactly how you put it in there.  I think that it’s really nice the way things change in the gas kiln, but I think for the nature of my project the electric kiln makes a lot more sense.  Especially because of how much quicker and easier it is to fire things.  Also the black underglaze kind of turns blue and fade-y in the gas kiln and I think I want the lines to be really clear and black. 

            I think I’ll really start to feel like things are moving along once I start in on the mugs.  I keep wanting to call them glasses but they’re not glass so I feel like I should call them cups, but saying the word “cup” makes me feel like a kindergartener, so I’ve been calling them mugs, but they’re not mugs.