Beginner having fun

Most certainly! Welcome to the clan!! You should be warned however that it is an addiction that can consume you. :) Donna

In message , DKat writes

Thank you for your kind welcome.

I opened the kiln this morning after my first ever glost firing yesterday. I was so thrilled to see all my previously dull looking pots come out all shiny and brightly coloured. It's a bit like magic - you put your pots in this magic box and many hours later they're transformed. Am I just revealing what a newbie I am to get so excited or does it always feel like this?

I've been asking around my friends if anyone else is into pottery, who I could chat with and swap notes, or ideally someone who was into it 10 years ago but hasn't done any for ages and would be delighted if I could take all this old equipment off their hands ;-) And it turns out a friend's husband got an electric wheel on ebay but he doesn't use it much because he doesn't have a kiln. Which is great because I have a kiln but don't have a wheel, though I'd love to try. So next Wednesday after I've taken the kids to school I'm going to my friends house and will probably spend all day watching lumps of clay flying at the walls. In return, I'll fire her husband's pots for him, and maybe we can have a chat and compare notes. He's not all that chatty though.

In the meantime I'm pressing on with handbuilding. I've got hold of a book called "Handbuilt Pottery Techniques Revealed" by Jacqui Atkin, which takes you in minute detail (suitable for total newbies) how to make a coil pot that doesn't look like it was made by a spastic monkey (later chapters go into pinch pots, slab building and moulds). I feel rather cross that most of the books I've seen say no more than "make some clay sausages and coil them into a pot - look at the picture to see one I made" followed by a picture of a pot so fine and perfectly symmetrical you'd swear it was slipcast. When even my clay sausages turn out hideously deformed and uneven, and my first attempt of using them to make a pot ended up looking like it was made by a drunken chimp, and fell apart into several coils as it dried. But working from Atkins' book I spent a couple of hours today (after one false start which ended up in the reclaim bucket) working on the bottom half of an urn-y thing. I'm pretty pleased at how it's coming along, although there's still stacks of room for improvement, and I'm having a lot of fun. My shoulders hurt though. I think I either need to find a higher chair, a lower workbench, or else just relax whilst I'm working.

opening the glass or ceramic kiln after firing is always like christmas morning. you'll find you won't have the patience to wait, but don't peek.

oh, to have that newbie enthusiasm again :)

regards, charlie

(heh,heh,heh,heh... it's got you...) I have never known a potter who does not wait in anticipation for the kiln to cool down enough to take a peak. Many of us are pyromaniacs to boot which means we really crave doing a flame fire one way or another (pit or raku if a high fire gas/wood kiln is not available). If you can take a workshop that offers some type of reduction firing, I recommend it.

You are going to find that you have muscles you never knew you had. Wedging, throwing, rolling the clay out, moving the clay - it all takes muscles that you will develop and be in better shape from it.

While we all get excited about the magic of the flame it is nice to hear about it from a new perspective. Keep us up to date when you have the time. DK

Yup, been doing it for about 30 odd (and some were VERY odd) years now... And it still feels that way, christmas and a birthday all rolled into one (and some times you don't get the bike... But when you do.... OOOOOOHHHH WWWOOOOWWWW) Hugs Eddie

I just bought the same book. Stumbled upon it at my pottery-pusher's shop (in German) - bought it, found it in English on Amazon and gave the German one to my pottery teacher. It really is a great book. I also like that it shows some variations of the designs, so you get your imagination going a bit more.

If you can, do take a course or two. My teacher has more like open workshops, where we all just come and do what we want and ask her for help as we need it.

Hahaha! I love the way you describe this!

If you have the same trouble again, just ask on the group for tips. You have found a really great gang here (I found them not so long ago, myself).

Or it could be that you are "just" hunching over or hitching your shoulders up without noticing it. Try to take quick stretch-breaks. I'm not good at that, myself - I get so caught up with what I am doing!

Keep having fun, that's the most important bit!

Marianne (in Switzerland - ummm - normally - am at my mom's in Norway just now :-)

Is it Summer nights that never end that far north and do you get to see the aurora borealis (sp?)? (I'm wintering in San Diego for a once in a life time adventure - Husband's sabbatical). Donna

Hi Donna :-)

In Oslo, they almost never end - the sun goes down here, but the nights aren't dark-dark. But if you go above the arctic circle, the sun doesn't go down and you have the most wonderful golden sunlight all night long. It has to be experienced, it simply can't be described.

I have, in fact, never seen the northern lights (aka aurora borealis), although they have come as far south as Oslo, but then I wasn't in Oslo - rotten luck, I have! HEhe! The further north you get, the more chance you have of seeing the northern lights in the winter - when the sun never comes UP! In Oslo, sunup at 9 AM and sundown at 3 PM is one of my least favourite parts of mid-winter.

Marianne