Coloring My Pottery Birds

My pottery classes with Tim Thibeault ended abruptly when social distancing started and all city buildings were closed down - after our second last class.

Looking back on the class, I realize how much I learned. Imitating Tim's caricatures of birds led me in a whole new direction in pottery.

Eventually I started making owls. After the fun of making them comes the make-it or break-it part of finishing them off by adding color. It can be heart-breaking not to like the way they turn out in the end. So much effort has gone into each one.

It was a learning experience, as I experimented with different ways of finishing them. I covered my first two birds (on the left in this picture) with oxide washes before their second firing... I like the matte effect. But I don't love the way the blue turned out on the white bird. He looks like someone dropped a bucket of blue paint on him!

I tried something different with the next two birds I made -owls. I dabbed different colors of glaze on them.

(I liked them before adding color... Would I like them afterwards?!)

I painted the beaks and claws with black under-glaze paint - then I brushed on glazes of various colors in rough dabs and strips - white, red, black...

This one looks horrified with what I did d to him!

This one looks a little sad...

(Or do these emotions reflect my feelings?!)

I wiped off some of the glaze at the back of this owl - to see if that looks better in the end...

As I left them to be fired a second time, I wondered how they would look once they came out of the kiln!

Maybe I should have wiped off more of the glaze ...

Live and learn, I guess... Trial and error is sometimes the best teacher...