I am not a business man, office supplies, and the loose reputation of decals...

 

Oh sure, it might be small, but tell me that isn't a dragon!  You know what?  You can't!  That is a dragon, wings and all!  And it flies!  Well, glides really; falls with style. Still, freaking cool.

In case you didn't know, today was Tuesday.  For me that means cleaning and paper work.  I am not a fan of paper work.  I am not a fan of the whole business side of running a business actually.  Order sheets and spread sheets and taxes and dealing with customers...that is not my idea of fun.  I would much rather be in the studio.  Unfortunately I have not yet convinced my wife to take care of all that for me.

Today also included packing up a few pots to ship.  This I do not mind as much, especially since it means I am selling pots.  I did not actually get the pots shipped due to a lack of the properly sized boxes, but that situation has since been rectified.  Thus tomorrow shipping pots is item one on the agenda.

How do you all deal with the acquisition of shipping materials?  I have quite a few previously used boxes sitting in my closet, patiently waiting to be filled with purchased pots.  Unfortunately they are seldom the correct size for what I need to ship.  Likewise with packing material I prefer to recycle newspapers and such as opposed to buying massive amounts of packing peanuts and bubble wrap.  This means my packing jobs often look rather messy.  I would like to say this is because I am earth conscious and all that, but really I am just cheap.  It keeps the shipping costs down for customers too, so...there's that.

A week or so ago I made a not so major purchase for the studio, that may (or may not) change how my work looks to some degree.  What is this not so major device you ask?  

I am the major of not so.

 This is a pictorial representation of my new HP laser jet printer.  Why did I purchase this item and how will it change (perhaps) how my work looks?  Any modern potter worth their salt knows that this device, plus magic paper, can be used to create ceramic decals!  For example...

This is a trio of objects I used to test out my new tool.  The plates are for a possible order and the cup is just because squirrels are kind of cool.  Not "awesome" or even "great", but kind of cool.

The decals were ridiculously easy to put on and fire.  That's right decals!  I ridicule you for being so easy!  AND...with a little testing I think I may be able to work decal firings in with bisque firings, so no extra firing just for decals.  This will save time and energy!!  

Here is a close up of the cup before firing.

And here is after.

Every chipmunk finds a squirrel...

...or something like that.

"It tastes a bit nutty..."

Now that I look at them I almost prefer the decals before they were fired.  The sepia tone the iron leaves (let's hear it for iron laden toner for making all this possible!  Thanks iron, your...scratch that, you're the best!) is ok, but the black would tie in better with the black underglaze pencil.  Oh well.  There is still much to be played around with.

And now I must find a book that will teach me how to go potty.

Up next...beat-boxing is awesome!

Custom geekery, the big restock and a surprising lack of content...

 

I recently started watching the  cult sci-fi classic Battlestar Galactica.  Not the newer version, but the original 1978 series.  I am not really sure why I started watching this, but it has been mildly amusing.  Imagine a Star Wars TV show.  The production is pretty disappointing though.  I know, it is from 1978, but once you have seen what is possible it is hard to go back to 70's production value.

Right now I am slogging through the last 11 episodes of the original series so I am caught up before I start in on the 2004 continuation of the series, which (I hope) will surely be made better.

On to the surprising lack of content, especially for a two week hiatus.

  

 The sell-out pumpkins are all finished up.  Well, mostly.  The bottoms still need to be sanded and such, but they are out of the kiln. 

I like how the brown ones turned out but I wish I would have added some color to the white ones.  They are just a tad too...sterile?  sparse?  I don't know; something is just not quite there.  No mishaps or stuck lids or anything though, so that is good.

 And here we have a few planters I have been working on lately.  They bear a more folk-y style in their decoration...a bleed over from the red earthenware cups I have been making.  And I just realized that I never took any pictures of the cups after they were decorated!  Well, suffice it to say the decoration theme was more folk/traditional than what I usually do.  And now that is starting to influence my other work apparently.

Below is a picture of some custom geekery.  Not sure if it is really evident through the blog, but every now and then I get a little geeky.  Not in the biting the heads off chickens sort of way (although I can't say I have ruled that out yet), but in the gadgets, comics, sci-fi sort of way.  That is why it was kind of fun to get an order for a computer geeky, fortress of solitude surprise mug.  It would be better if I knew exactly what kind of geeky this individual was, but I guess a computer is as good a start as any.

And in the background you may spy a custom oval planter featuring a pheasant.  Quite a bit of detail going into that one what with the feathers and all.

This past Saturday I made a run up to Krueger Pottery in St. Louis to get more clay.  I was down to my last 25 lbs then...

...Shazam!  1100 pounds of fresh clay!  1000 of the utility Laguna B mix for the regular ware, then an extra 100 lbs of L & R Red Earth for further explorations into the earthenware genre.  I am always surprised at how little space one thousand pounds of clay takes up.  

And finally, something completely unrelated to pots.  

For a while we have had a small fire pit thing on the back patio.  I have spent many hours on many brisk spring or fall evenings enjoying the fires it contained.  The only problem was that it was completely contained by metal mesh lattice stuff; top, bottom and all four sides.  This meant that the heat was also somewhat contained and any wood used had to be cut pretty small to fit in.

So this past weekend I got a wild hair and decided to build a new fire pit out of a pile of extra patio bricks that has been sitting around for the past 4 years or so.  

I think I will end up buying a few more bricks to even out the top.  The barrel will be cut down so it is shorter than the bricks...or I could build bricks up around it and make a mini barrel kiln!  No...no I am probably not going to do that...yet.  Either way, I have already spent a few hours enjoying the warmth emanating from the fiery barrel.  And with pieces of wood as tall as me!  No more cutting wood into bite sized pieces! 

And with that I am done.  Up next...dugong!

Why I hurt...

A month or two ago my wife and I purchased a short term membership to Crossfit, a local gym.  We have both been putting off actually going thus far (my wife still is).  Yesterday I bit the bullet and attended my first class...it kicked my ass pretty hard.
Crossfit is not your typical gym though.  They have scheduled classes with short, intense workouts.  Yesterday we did squats, kettle bells, pushups, lunges and something called burpees.  Doesn't sound like much, but we were supposed to do as many as we possibly could of each of these exercises in four minutes.  So the total work out only lasted 20-25 minutes, but everyone was laid out on the floor after it was all said and done.  And on top of all that, I chipped my tooth with a weight bar.
I am a strange kind of sore today; my muscles hurt a bit, but they are more tired than anything.  It was good though.  I am going again tomorrow.

On the clay front, I was accepted to a couple art fairs last week, which is cool.  I was kind of worried about getting accepted to shows for a little bit, so getting into even these two shows is a nice little validation of what I am doing.  I still have to apply to shows for later in the year though, so I have yet to see what will happen with those.
The wife and I are also planning a home show type thing in the next month or so.  We have a lot of work to do to get ready for that on top of making enough inventory to cover everything.

And finally, here are a few pictures so this post isn't so dry.  This is all stuff that came out of the last load, I think.  I just haven't put any of them up here yet.  Most of these and more are on my Etsy page.

Skull butter dish.  Someone asked if I could make one of these, so I did.

Bird and magnolia butter dish

The "Baa Baa" cup

Raven wine set

I guess that is all for now.  Until later...

-Rob, Simple Circle Studios

Here be Dragons!

Today I sat outside in a t-shirt and decorated pots.  I know everyone has been talking about the mild winter, so it is old news, but come on.  February 2 and I was perfectly comfortable outside in a t-shirt.  That is some strange brew going on up there in the atmosphere.

Anyway, I have been decorating for a firing coming up next week.  I have some consignment stuff in there, some Valentine's day stuff in there (as previously discussed), and some new designs that I have been hankering to try out (sheep, whales, fish, etc).  Today I also worked on a dragon design. 

I have thought about doing some dragon designs before.  I mean, dragons are just freakin' cool.  They always seemed a bit complicated to put on a pot in any sort of expeditious way though.  This being the year of the dragon, however, I figured what better time to give it a go?

I sketched this guy out the other night at a meeting and put him on a cup this afternoon.  Not too shabby if I do say so myself.  And it didn't take near as long as I figured it would, so good news there.  The question is, do I make it year specific or just leave it a generic dragon tumbler?

Now that I look at it again I think this one will get a "2012" to finish out the design.  There will undoubtedly be more dragons wares in the future though.  

On a completely different topic, has anyone else been getting show stuff lined up for the coming year?  I am probably getting into this stuff a bit late for some people.  There are probably veteran art fair folks out there who already had 80% of there shows applied for and in the bag half way through January.  Oh well.  My goal for this year is to do at least 10 art fairs.  I have two lined up for this fall and am anxiously awaiting responses for a handful in late spring/early summer.  For those who have experience with this stuff, do shows generally let you know if you did not make it into a show, or just if you did?

Well, I guess that is all for now.  Until later...

-Rob, Simple Circle Studios

At home with the Bub

 It looks like Noah might have pink eye, so he had to stay home from the babysitters today.  Not really a big deal, but it means that I will not be able to get into the studio much; maybe during nap time.  I will be able to get some more business type work done, though.
So I guess on the agenda for today is: finish Christmas presents, get contact info for potential retail outlets, call photographers about getting pictures taken for show application and take pictures for posting stuff on Etsy.

Speaking of Etsy (and Chritmas presents, wink wink, nod nod) I finally have a few things in my shop.  Just posted a couple last night, actually.  As I have said before, it is a laborious process (for me at least) but I suppose it has to be done.  Any way, here are a couple shots from the shop.  Click on the pictures to check it out.

Blue and brown whiskey cup

Green and brown mug

Back to child care.  Until later.

-Rob