Just a quick update

Hello everyone,

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything on this blog and I am going to try and fix that.  I know it is not New Years but I am going to make a resolution anyway.  I am going to try and make a post at least twice a week so I can keep everyone up to date on what is going on in the world of Sheridan Ray Pottery.

First off I would like to let everyone who does not alread know that my wife and I at the beginning of the summer had a little baby boy.  His name is Simon Christopher Ray.  I will post some pictures in the next couple of days of his last 10 weeks.

Second.  As of this past Friday my wife and I are now home owners.  We purchased a house just down the street from Metamora High School where I work.  It is also just down the street from Metamora Fields Golf Course where I play so the best of both worlds.

Third and Fourth.  I am in the works of planning and building a new studio and wood fired kiln. 

That is it for now.  Until next time.

Sheridan

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas Everyone. I have been lazy with the blog as of late but there have been many things going on that have taken precedence. I will get into that on another day. As for now Merry Christmas once again and Happy New Year.

Sheridan

Just an Update

Sorry I haven't been posting as much as I would like to be. I have been having sales these past couple of weekends and my time has been pretty much dedicated to that. I did get to go to the driving range yesterday with my brother and I am paying for it today. My whole body is sore. I just want to let everyone out there in blogger land know that after the sale this weekend and after I make my clay order I am going to be getting back to the studio full time to make pots for a Christmas sale. The tentative dates on that are going to be the first two weekends in December. Once I get all the details figured out I will let everyone know for sure. Until then have a nice weekend.

Sheridan

Sale Pictures

Here are some pictures from the sales that I have been at the past two weekends. The first two pictures are from the Washington Fine Arts Festival which was last weekend and the last two pictures are my table setups from this past sale in Eureka.










The big jars sitting up in this picture are 4 lb. jars and besides the blue one they are all gone. I really like the amber colored jar with the slip trailing and so did the person who got to take it home with them. I am going to do some more of that slip trailing under the amber glaze because it turned out really nice. I want to come up with a crackle slip to put unding the amber glaze. I think it will be really sharp.













This picture is also from the sale last weekend. Almost all of the pots on this book shelf are all sold.










This is the first of the two pictures from this past sale in Eureka. I sold about half of the pitchers and quite a few bowls. I am going to be hurting for pots for my sale in two weeks but I'll survive.










I'd like to stay and chat but my uncles are in town from out of state and they are trying to get me to go celebrate so this is going to be cut a little short.

Sheridan

Fresh Pots From the Kiln

So this is something that I havent done as of yet on this blog. I have been working on glaze testing for almost the past year trying to get things just right. While I wasnt glaze testing I was either making pots, clay, or something else probably not all to productive. I have just recently got my glaze to where I want them, for now, and am finally glaze firing my work. This is all happeneing right in the nick of time because I have an Art fair this weekend and I am hoping with these glazes to do well. The link to the website with all the information to this weekends sale is here>>>http://www.washingtonfinearts.org/uploads/eMailPromo.pdf. I am also having barn sales during the first two weekends of September. Enough with the talk on with the pictures.









These are three of my four new glazes. I also have a cream glaze that is in the next picture. I am probably going to stick with these 4 different glazes so that I only have four buckets of glaze hanging around. Right now I have some different layering tests in the kiln so I hope to have pictures of some of those tomorrow.









This is my cream glaze. I am really happy with how this one turned out. I am not sure if you can see it from this picture but a couple of these cream mugs that were sitting next to my green glaze in the kiln got some green blushes on them. It is a very subtle blush but it makes the pot that much better.









So here is a group of pots that came out of the last firing. I really like my pots to cater to the kitchen and garden so I wanted to make glazes that even though they were different colors would match each other. The green and blue together aren't the best but the cream, amber, green or cream, amber, blue look great together.












Here is one of the layering tests I was talking about. This particular load of pots started with disaster this morning at about 10. On top of these bowls in the kiln was a large floor jar that ended up exploding during the firing. Luckily the jar was a bone dry jar so that all the pieces were easy to clean up but none the less I was kinda sad. These bowls survived just fine since they had a kiln shelf to protect them from the debris but I wont see how they turn out until the next firing. The glaze combo on these is my cream glaze as the base with a ribbon of my amber glaze. I have this combo on a vase I believe in the firing that I am unloading tomorrow.









Last but not least glazed pitchers. These are going into the kiln tomorrow morning. There is another set of them on sawhorses just to the right of this picture but they haven't been glazed yet due to their size. They are about 15 inches tall and my glaze buckets are just a little bit to small. I did find some 10 gallon rubber maid plastic garbage cans online that will be perfect for pretty much any glazing I have to do. Hopefully I will get those by the beginning of next week. I am also hoping that now that I am glazing pots and firing again I will be posting a heck of a lot more. I found that when all I was doing was making pots the posts were sort of redundant. Oh well...... Cheers!

Sheridan

Lets try this again...

So I have been a very bad blogger for the past six months. I am going to try and keep up with things a little bit better. My goal is to try and post at least two times a week. During the past couple of months I have been a potter, coach, babysitter and student. I was a track coach during the spring and when you add that to making pots all day that left me very little time for blogging. Now that track is over and it is Summer I am not only making pots but I am babysitting my neice and nephew a couple of days a week. On top of all of that I am taking a couple of classes at a community college so I will be able to start substitute teaching. I have been doing a lot of things lately trying to get ready for an art sale mid August and a barn sale in September. I am in the middle of testing some new glazes so hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have a full set of working glazes.

In the picture below is where I store all of my bisque pots before I fire them. Right now I dont have any working glazes that I like so I am gaining bisqued pots at a crazy rate.








These big pots I made today. They are about 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. I am able to make these pretty fast thanks to a weed burner I bought a couple of years ago. I am able to make each pot in about an hour and a half.

The next two pots below were fired in my friends Joe and Christy Cole's wood fired kiln. The show that is mid August requires a few pictures of pots for the juried section and these are two of the pots I chose to get pictures taken of. The blues on the sides of the pot are due to the close proximity to the ember bed in the kiln. There is now glaze on the outside of the pot all of the color and flashing is due to the wood ash and flame from the firebox.

This last picture is a test glaze that I am working on. I just did a test firing and this test glaze I just threw together and I am really pleased with the results.










Sheridan

Long Time No See...

It has been really crazy over these last few months and posting has been sort of put at the way side. Just to recap I was married in November, had family in town for both Christmas and New Years and I moved my studio to a new location. I will post some pictures here in the next couple days of these events.

As for now I am in the middle of testing some cone 6 raw glazes. I have a pretty good group of base glazes that I am going to work with over the next couple of weeks. Once again I will post some pictures of these glazes as they come out of the kiln.