I’ve been spending a lot of time making new paint palettes. After the honey bee and dragonfly palettes, I designed a few simpler ones based on patterns in nature, specifically animal patterns. These patterns were inspired by fish scales, snakeskin, and armadillo bands.

Most recently, I’ve been working on a series of seasonal palettes. First came the “cloud” palette for fall. It features a cluster of interlocking rain clouds hovering over a large rectangular well where an abandoned umbrella sits surrounded by puddles. More recently, I’ve been working on the winter themed “polar bear” palette. It features a bear emerging from a forest of tessellating pine trees as he trudged through the snow.

While I’ve been super busy with these projects, there have been a number of setbacks, mostly due to my aging kiln. I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new one several weeks ago. As I eagerly await its arrival, I’m going to shift gears and spend more time painting. Honestly, not having to think about the technical aspects of ceramics for a little while will be refreshing.

I’ve been really busy making palettes this summer. A big thank you to Amber Lane who has kindly included my Honey Bee Palette in many of her photos and videos on Instagram.

I love making the white porcelain palettes but I’ve also missed playing with colorful ceramics. This past weekend’s weather was beautiful so I set aside the time to layout my latest tile table top. The idea for the design came from walking my dogs along the path at Golden Gardens beach.

This patio table is one of the first pieces of furniture James and I bought together. It’s over 20 years old and a little rusted and banged up so it’s more than ready for a makeover. The mesh top is a good substrate for adhering the tiles with thinset. In order to grout the tiles, I’ll tape the underside of the table, apply the grout and remove it when the grout has hardened a bit.

I started making tiled tables as a way to use clay that is too hard to press into molds but is soft enough to roll into slabs and then cut into tiles. They’re also a great way to use up clay bodies and glazes that have been sitting around the studio for a long time.

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the more physical routine of tile pressing and work at a slower pace on something. These sgraffito bowls take a fair amount of time to carve but it’s a relaxing, almost meditative, process that yields a very useful item.

This rabbit is the first new tile of the year. Designing tiles is the most fun stage of the the making process; I wish I had more time to do it. I usually try to add three or four new designs every year to my shop but, since there’s not much room in the studio for more molds, it may be time to retire some of the older designs. Even though I feel like my work is evolving in some ways, there’s a lot of sentimental attachment to those tiles. It’s going to be a challenge.

As a tile maker, I make a lot of plaster molds.

This is especially true lately as I’ve been pouring, as opposed to pressing, tiles and palettes. Unlike regular clay, there are chemicals in the casting slip that break down the plaster. This means I need to make new molds fairly often.

The idea for this palette came from an artist named Mona who asked me to make her a white dragonfly tile because she thought it would work well as a small palette. She was right – it made a really good mini palette because of the negative space surrounding the insect.

I’ve been wanting to design another palette so I sketched some ideas incorporating a pattern of dragonflies. Since it is a relatively large piece, I’ve been experimenting with different types of clay in an effort to minimize the warping often associated with larger tiles. I love the white color of porcelain clay for making palettes because I think it provides a great surface for mixing colors, but I decided to try a couple of stoneware clay bodies too. I was taught that stoneware, especially with sand and grog, is less inclined to warp than porcelain. Surprisingly, I did encounter some warping with one of the stoneware clays as it dried. Fortunately, the palette flattened out during the glaze firing.

I glazed the porcelain palettes with clear glaze and the stoneware palettes with white glaze. The white stoneware palettes provide a white surface for mixing colors but they have a more rustic appearance. The darker clay peaks through the white glaze and accentuates the carved details.