New Face Mugs from August

 

some of the face mugs at the Tour

Last weekend at the Yakima Artist's Studio Tour, I showed (and shared pictures of) my most recent batch of screaming face mugs. But I never got around to sharing pictures of them here on my blog.

Orange and red scream mug

I made 11 new mugs this summer for this show. I started and finished them all in August, along with some other functional work, and only pulled the finished pieces out of the kiln the week before the show, as I was setting up.

some of the face mugs ready to come out of the last bisque firing

The mugs all fired successfully and the glazes did what I wanted them to do. I think some of the faces are more striking than others, and some ended up being my favorites or less favorites.

wet clay roughed-in for the face on this mug

I remembered to take some in-progress photos of the mugs from wheel to sculpting to glazing to finished. Some of them look completely amateur while they are in progress. I actually get a kick out of taking photos at this stage.

this blue on blue face mug is the finished version of the rough one above

They can also look like a bit of a mess while I'm glazing, as can my work space. I like to make the colors bright and unrealistic, but I also like to make the color combinations more complex to highlight the indents and textures of the faces.

first layer of glaze on the faces before being wiped away

What that means is that at one point I have painted the first layer of color over the faces and they just look like the person glazing is bad at painting.

green on red screaming face

I had some color combinations in mind that I wanted to replicate (and avoid) from my earlier mugs, but I was doing a whole bunch of glazing at once, monitoring the levels of each glaze I had on hand, and trying to pay attention to a few other things, so I lost track sometimes of which colors I planned to do more of.

green on green (or possibly blue) scream mug

The result was that I used less red than intended and more green. A few of the blue and green faces have less contrast between the first and second layers of glazes.

first layer of glaze wiped away from the faces to highlight texture

After the first layer of glaze dried, I wiped away the glaze like I do with my top underglaze layers in textured sculptures. At this point the faces photograph pretty well, especially with the darker colors and from a distance.

blue on blue mask mug

I then apply a semi-transparent glaze over the entire piece, covering the darker highlight layer of glaze. In the firing, the darker color will show through, though it becomes invisible before it goes into the kiln.

glazing in progress, interiors and first layer exterior done

Underglazes change tone and texture during firing, but generally don't change color much. So I can often gauge basically what the color combination will look like after firing and I can see how the colors layer, as long as my first coats are thick enough.

green on green scream mug with crooked eyes

Because the colorants, fluxes, and other materials in the glazes react to the heat of the kiln, the colors of the glazed but unfired work don't really reflect what we will see after the firing.

fully glazed face mugs ready for firing

The color change can be a challenge for beginning potters to learn, since glazes that look pink in the jar or the bucket might turn out blue or red or transparent.

My nose is not connected to my respiratory system face mug

This was a pretty good kiln load for me. It was probably helped along by the mistakes and practice pieces that I fired earlier in the summer or last year, and the results of this firing will help me choose and avoid certain glazes and combinations next time I fire.

fired face mugs, bowl, and mini vases

I expected to like the green over red, and it is one of my favorite color combinations, but I was pleasantly surprised by the orange over red and the orange over blue.

orange on red scream mug (with raised eyes)

The mugs themselves were thrown on the same day, using basically the same amount of clay, but I neither weighed the clay nor measured the height or width of the cups. I like the variation in heights and widths, but I also noticed some variation in width near the top. 

orange on blue scream mug

While most of the mugs have straight walls, one is shorter and a bit wider than the others and flares very slightly from the bottom to the top. The white glaze inside this one brightens the interior further. I think this particular mug feels like the kind of mug that makes you slow down, or the kind that has room on top for foam art.

wide green on red scream mug

I was a bit surprised that I didn't sell more of these mugs during the tour. I'm actually wondering if some people were thinking they'd be able to contact me later to purchase items closer to the holidays. Lots of people talked about, laughed at, and reacted to the mugs. 

scream mugs on display for the Tour

My studio was very clean for the tour and I had lots of work out in the studio. I hid my packing materials, my tools, my clay, and my mess for the show, but as soon as I start working in the studio again (sometime after the busy start of the quarter, as I am transitioning to teaching on campus this quarter!), I will bring out all the mess (because I'll need the tools and clay and works in progress).

Very early stages of a scream mug

I have already started putting away some of the items, including everything from the lawn and much of the functional work besides the mugs. The other day I had to take out some of my citrus squeezers because someone wanted to buy one. Luckily the combination of cleaning for the show and my husband's partly finished hallway remodel allowed me to pack these items away more carefully than I did after the Fresh Air Art Festival, so It was easy to find the box and unpack it.

green on green and blue on green scream mugs

I also plan to bring some of these pieces to Oak Hollow Gallery in the next week or so and have them available for the holiday season. I plan to bring some scream mugs, bowls, mini pots, and maybe some of the citrus squeezers if they want them.

scream mug in progress