coffee mugs

Sunday Studio Visit – More Coffee Mugs!

Its been AGES since my last Sunday Studio Visit post, mostly due to the shop I am now running in Central Ballarat, but I am hoping to get myself back into the habit – so here we go!

I had another custom order for coffee mugs recently, and so as usual made more than I needed – just in case. The order was for two, so I made six. They all bisque fired with no problem, so I glazed four blue and did the others in red – they all turned out great! Peeps (my studio dog) did a great job supervising!

The clay is Feeney’s BRT (Buff Raku Trachyte). It is a groggy clay which, when fired to 1300c displays a gorgeous dark speckle which can sparkle in the light. This is caused by the particles of trachyte. This speckle shows through the glaze and in very ‘on point’ at the moment!

Though groggy, I have found that throwing with it quite soft makes centring faster and easier so it is quite do-able for average sized tableware. You can see me throwing a vase in a previous post HERE

I began using this clay years ago for my wheelthrown sculpture during my PhD but was not using glaze on it at this point as i wanted to feature the surface of the clay :

But for tableware the clay looks gorgeous glazed. The above mugs had underglaze applied inside and half on the outside with a clear glaze applied to cover the underglaze. The bottom half of the mugs on the outside are not glazed to feature the raw clay.

And on that note, I will leave you with a video of the glazing process 🙂

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Sunday Studio Visit – grotesque mug update

There’s not alot going on at this time of year in the studio, apart from recovering from Christmas & the New Year, however, regular readers may remember that a few weeks ago I posted about a custom order grotesque mug I made – the customer had broken their mug and wanted me to make a replacement.

The original post image showed the original mug (Left) and the freshly made duplicate (right).

Since then the mug has been glazed and fired, and i must say i am very pleased with it…. while it may not be my ‘style’ it has certainly captured the essence of the original mug, probably because I enjoyed the process of sculpting it so much. It has been quite a few year since I did any figurative sculpting and it did bring back an enjoyment I am interested in re-exploring.

And an added bonus – the original blog post, mentioned earlier, was featured on Pottery Making Infos December Clay Blog Review under Process & Techniques along with lots of other great articles, and is well worth a visit.

Well, that’s it for this Sunday – see you during the week 🙂

What’s Happening in the Studio?

A couple of months ago a local handmade boutique shop approached me to tinker with designing some generous sized coffee mugs whose shape would hold the heat of the coffee in and also be lidded to help facilitate this heat retention. This shop, the Gordon Hat Shoppe – also make beautiful handmade clothing – hats, gloves, jackets – all the stuff Victorians need pretty much all year round to keep warm!!

Image : Courtesy Gordon Hat Shoppe

The Gordon Hat Shoppe also runs a successful stall at the Daylesford market where they sell gorgeous winter fashion designs. Lately they have also introduced, and have been selling, a hat range made from upcycled fair trade coffee hessian sacks.  Fair trade chocolates have been paired with the hats, and they thought some coffee mugs may be good to throw into the mix…. I think they may be onto something!! They also wanted to keep the whole enterprise a combination of fair trade (coffee, chocolates) and local (upcycling and handmade), emphasising the sustainable nature of the product.

So after going into the design phase, which was pretty painless as Bob – half of the Gordon Hat Shoppe –  liked my creations straight away, I am now onto the production phase – twenty four mugs initially, and judging by how sales have been going at the retail outlet and market, there may be plenty more to come – in fact it could become the bane of my existence!!

Although the order could be ongoing, and therefore moulds and slip casting may seem attractive, I am intending to keep the mugs completely handmade… for a variety of reasons.

• I am known for handmade and don’t want to compromise this stance
• Handmade is a great marketing point
• Handmade means every mug is unique
• In a mass consumer culture it is important to promote unique and handmade products

Following are some pics of the process so far – I will keep you updated on how the development of the line goes, and most importantly SALES!! Why most importantly SALES??  Coz even artists have to eat!!

Approved designs

freshly thrown cups & lids

Cofee cup handles