The Butler's Pottery

Friday, April 1, 2022

Carved Rose Flower Vase

After I turned black clay into this vase I wanted to carve something around it, for a unique vase of my style. A elegant black vase would have been nice too, but there are many of those.

I am a gardener and love flowers, roses it had to be.

After this vase was almost dry, I painted a white clay slip around it. Slip is liquid clay. Once again, I waited until the slip had no sheen on it, then the carving began. Pottery is often waiting for something to dry, just to the right stage.

I drew a picture of a vase with roses, then used it as a guideline to carve this rose vase. Carving is very relaxing for me.

I fired this vase with a clear glaze in my kiln, which brightens and seals the vase.

You can buy it buy clicking this link https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1205531613/ceramic-flower-vase-wheel-turned-vase?click_key=dd4e70f31302ed8bf5ac9995eb0020ad5f37d2e9%3A1205531613&click_sum=52196dd5&ref=shop_home_active_3&frs=1

Friday, March 4, 2022

Rooster Crowing

I grew up on a chicken farm and I can take or leave chickens, except when I include them in my pottery, like this painting. Then I love to make them whimsical.

HOW ITS MADE - I rolled out clay then cut out a crowing rooster and a huge sunflower. I painted them with under-glaze paint, then bisque fired them in

my kiln. My kiln is an electric kiln therefore they are not actually baked in a fire, but with electricity. Fired in a kiln goes back to ancient times of wood fired kilns, which are still used.

Then I glazed in a clear glaze and fired again at a high temperature. This process melts the glaze unto the pottery, bringing out the colours.

With acrylic paint I painted this background on this canvas, including a hen. I epoxied the rooster and flower on to it.

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Snot Nose Yarn Bowls

A few years ago I saw quirky pottery yarn bowls. What a fun item to make. It has taken me a few years to get around to making them but I finally have made my own style of these snot nose yarn bowls.

I turned a bowl big enough for a skein of yarn. While it was still pliable I pushed the inside of the bowl out to make eyes, nose and lips. With more clay, I added big eyelids and more accents.

This was so much fun because I could make the face as quirky, cross eyed and lopsided as I want, but still keeping the look of a face, like a cartoon.

I wanted a soft coloured skin tone of greens and blues, which I achieved by using my compressor and paint gun to spray on the underglaze colours. I then embellished the eyes and lips with more ceramic underglaze colours.

Like all of my pottery, they were then fired in my kiln to bisque pottery. The final step was dipping them in clear glaze to put the sheen on it, then I fired (baked) them in a hot kiln of about 2900 degrees.

These will make great gifts for mother's day or for yourself.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/685499234/yarn-bowl-pottery-snot-nose-yarn-bowl?ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1

I sell them on Etsy and Facebook or you can email me directly for $75.00plus shipping. Etsy prices are higher as they have their fees and shipping prices included in the price, something Etsy wanted us to do. https://www.facebook.com/The-Butlers-Pottery-Photography-236876216352661/?ref=settings

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Mugs Mugs & More Mugs

If you are a coffee or tea drinker there is nothing better than having your own special mug. I have a cupboard full of store-bought mugs with logos on them that have been given to us. In 2003 I started making pottery and mugs quickly became my staple seller and maker. I must admit the beginning ones have probably ended up in the trash can. But some of them, the ones that the bottom cracked but still held water and were still usable landed in our cupboard at our cottage and our house. A few mugs that were good for selling still ended up in my cupboard. We need good mugs too.

Now that we have my handmade pottery mugs in the cupboard they are my and my husbands go-to cup for our coffee, tea and even hot chocolate.

When I turn my cups on my pottery wheel I push out the bottom of the cup and flair out the top. This makes a comfortable shape, but it also serves as a function for the mugs. It keeps my coffee hotter than a straight store-bought cup. Stoneware clay that I make them from also holds the temperature longer.

Glazing, the colour, is often an experiment. How does the glaze flow when it is fired in the kiln? Would it be best on the bottom shelf, which is cooler than the top, on on the top shelf? Does this change the colour or how it flows? Brushing on the glaze or dipping it can also change the colour of it. Once I settled on the glazes that I liked and worked well I began to combine two or three colours on my mugs to see how they flowed together.

Now I have a few designs that have become my regular go-to colours. After a few years of selling these mugs, I am now itching to experiment with other colour glaze combinations I can create.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my mugs I have. You can buy them on my Etsy web site The Butler's Creations. To see my mugs just click here to go to this site.
www.etsy.com/ca /shop/TheButlersCreations?section_id=7509176

Monday, September 3, 2018

Pitchers for Wine, Milk, Cream, Maple Syrup

I make these pitchers by rolling out clay and forming them around a piece of tarp-paper. The clay has to be a bit wetter than leather hard before I form it into the pitcher shape. I find if it is leather hard the clay cracks while rolling it into these pitchers. If it is too soft it won't hold its shape when I stand it up. A bottom is put on it.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/624347908/pitcher-for-wine-milk-juice-handmade?ref=shop_home_active_4

I cut out the spout from clay using the tarp-paper form I have made for a spout. I put the tarp-paper spout form against the pitcher and with my pin tool I lightly score around it, marking where the spout will go. I then cut out the clay about 1/4" on the inside of my scoreline for the spout. I slip and score and attach the spout to the pitcher. To reinforce the spout I put a coil of clay under it and leave it as a coil to add an accent.

www.etsy.com/ca/listing/625911414/pitcher-for-wine-milk-juice-handmade?ref=shop_home_active_3

My handles are either pulled or put through my extruder. For the brown, white and black pitchers I cut out a long narrow piece of clay from the clay I used for the pitcher then roll it around to form the handle. These pitchers are made from stacking brown, white and black clay. I then put this clay in a bag for a couple of weeks to allow them to stick together. I slice out pieces of this clay and lay them on my slab roller to roll out flat then cut out the pitcher shape from my tar-paper form. Each one has a different design depending on how I mixed the clay.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/626864558/pitcher-for-wine-milk-juice-handmade?ref=shop_home_active_2
The pitcher is left to dry under plastic. I lean the handle against the roller of my slab roller to hold it in place, keeping it from flopping down until it is stiff enough to stand by itself.

Here are the tarp-paper forms. I have 3 sizes for tall, short or narrow pitchers.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Gobble Gobble

I was sitting on the couch catching up on some emails when Dave came in the house and said, "You should see the big bird in your backyard." I instantly dropped what I was doing to check out this strange phenomenon.

I knew it had to be something unusual. I have an assortment of birds flying from the trees to the feeders and I am sure Dave wouldn't be excited about everyday birds. Bluejays, morning doves and a variety of woodpeckers and sparrows grace my bird feeder all winter long. Before the last snowfall, when there are a few feet of grass soaking up the sun after a long winter's nap, robins hop about bending their head to the ground listening for the slithery sound of the juicy worms and grubs below the ground. Soon after the snow melts yellow and red finches, the red ones are called purple flinches, flight about. I always wonder why they called them purple finches. Perhaps the person who named them was colored blind, or red just wasn't exotic enough. I should Google that. You can find anything on Google, some true, some not. Still much better than the encyclopedias I grew up with.

The last birds to come back are the cute, flighty and aggressive hummingbirds.

I've gotten a bit sidetracked. This had to be an unusual bird. It was, but not a rare one, just unusual that it was in my back yard. It was a wild turkey strutting through my yard eating the leftover seeds the blue jays scattered during the winter.

I have a kindred liking to turkeys. They are not the most beautiful bird, they even look quite awkward with their long legs and long neck sticking out of their basketball size bodies. I love the way they walk, long legs stretching out in front of them, almost pointing their toes like graceful ballerinas, their head bobbing along in front of their body. They walk as if they don't have a care in the world. Other than the hunters in the spring they probably don't have a care in the world. Perhaps the hunters don't scare them either as I've heard they are hard to see and hunt. This is probably true. I tried to get a picture of the bird in the morning sun with last nights raindrops glistening on the trees. As soon as I opened the door his long legs scurried him off into the woods where his round body was quickly hidden or camouflaged by the dead underbrush left over from last winter.

Why do I have a kindred for turkeys? When I grew up there wasn't wild turkey to be had, not-a, not one. Apparently, when our ancestors immigrated to Canada from Europe between the 1700 and 1800's and met the locals, wild turkeys roamed this province, Ontario. By 1909 the turkeys had gone the way of unregulated hunters.

About 40 years ago our government decided we should be able to enjoy these funky birds again. I was going to say majestic, peacocks are majestic, not turkeys.

The government chose a few natural parks and brought turkeys in. One of those parks was the property behind my Dad's farm, the farm I grew up on. Dad once owned the land, until our government decided to make the back half into a natural park. They bought the back '40's' of several properties, at a good price, to create this park.

The ministry or government fed corn to the turkeys until they got established. It didn't take long for the turkeys natural needs to go into actions. Turkeys flourished.

Chicks were plentiful enough to be relocated further north. The government poured corn or grain on the ground. The chicks came out of their hiding to fill their bellies. According to my Dad, who watched this, the government workers shot a net over the chicks while they ate. Once the chicks were captured they were transported to a safe area further north in our province.

The turkeys flourished in our lush land with plenty of woods, lakes, ponds, and swamps.

Now large turkeys strut through the woods, into our yards and occasionally cross the road.

Instead of 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' Why do the turkey's cross the road? Of course, to get to the other side.


Owl Tray	https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/610350761/ceramic-hand-carved-serving-tray-owl-in?ref=shop_home_active_1

This tray I made has an owl in the tree instead of a wild turkey strutting its stuff. During the winter an owl sits in the spruce tree in the back yard eyeing the squirrels for a meal. They have caught mice, but no squirrels. I should make a turkey in a field on a tray some day.

Friday, February 3, 2017

Ring And Trinket Dishes

I have noticed that other potters make cute little dishes to set your rings, spare change or other trinkets on.

Last year we cleaned my husband's step-mother's house, who passed away. In the basement in an old dresser drawer was a cardboard box. Inside this box was an assortment of cotton doilies. I brought the box home, along with several other items from the house.

I like a few doilies to set on my dresser tops, but one can only have so many doilies. Then I remembered that I had made designs on some of my pottery by pressing a piece of webbing into the wet clay, like on this juice pitcher.