I mean really, this past few days I've been in some serious need of some motivation.
It wasn't really a riding day today:
I decided it was time to take care of those cactus plants I got.
What cactus plants?
See here.
I had a pug of clay sitting around for like two months.
Why they call it a pug I have no idea; it looks nothing like a dog.
Trust me on this, I have a dog.
So anyways, I need some planters in which to relocate my cacti. Seems they need pots that are deeper than they are wide.
Too bad, since I got a bunch of bowls sitting around that would have been great.
Seems I need some Custom Cacti Creations(CCC).
This would be interesting for planters are not really my thing.
I mean I'm an artist don't you know.
Anyways, about five pounds clay seemed right.
First, you gotta sort of make it flat:
This is not as easy as it may seem.
It's a lot easier to get the clay to move up rather than down and out.
Then you make a puka in the middle.
For those of you following along at home, a puka is a Hawaiianism for hole:
The key to working stuff wide and tall is to go slow.
Next you start to open it up and pull up the walls:
For this planter, I wanted to get fancy smancy.
I had a sort of double vee shape in mind:
I started to tuck the bottom in while opening up the top.
Then I hit it with a flat thingy called a rib to smooth out the walls and make the final shape:
I worked the rim a bit to put some angles on it.
I sort of like working forms with edges and angles as opposed to just making round boobalous things.
Then again, round boobalous things are okay too:
Okay, that's not really a round boobalous thing, but you get the idea.
So anyways, I got like four cacti, I needed four CCCs:
Took me around two hours to punch these out even after I made a mistake on the first one and had to recycle it.
When I get home later tonight, I'll cover them in plastic to slow the drying down. By tomorrow morning, they should be ready to trim, which in ceramic artist speak means to clean up the bottom and put a foot them.
I need to get some glaze from the Ceramic Hobbyist; I don't think I have enough to do all four.
Hopefully, the cactus plants will have a new home by late next week.
I gotta say, I was t h i s close to going out and buying some pots, but really that would have made me feel pretty lame.
Anyways, we'll see how these planters come out. I have some ideas for the color and the design of the glazes.
I really like stuff by Maria Martinez; in fact I've probably been subconsciously influenced by some of her shapes.
I'll probably try and put a contemporary spin on some of her designs.
Stay tuned.
Oh, and the puka pots?
Well they are planters right?
I mean they got holes in the bottom.
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