carved bowls – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis https://www.gillianmcmillan.com Sun, 19 Apr 2026 04:22:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 April Pots https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2026/04/18/april-pots/ https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2026/04/18/april-pots/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2026 04:18:07 +0000 https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/?p=16727

My latest batch of pots is small but I was anxious to see the results of some tests. Also Circle Craft shop is waiting for some new work so I’ve made half a dozen new jugbirds.

My main concern was to see if a new-to-me white earthenware clay would have similar shrinkage to D’Arcy’s redart clay, and if my preferred clear glaze would fit both. Yes! The new clay is Pottery Supply House 400 so I’ll have to see if I can buy it from a local supplier or order it from Ontario. Below is a photo of a bowl I made to test its throwing and carving properties. The Mayco Clear One glaze, fired to cone 05, is good, making the white slightly yellow. The vase is a mixture of PSH400 and D’Arcy’s and they shrink equally.

Carved white bowl 3.5" x 7.5"
Marbled Vase w D'Arcy's & PSH400 6.5"x 4.5"

I also made a couple of wee slab plates to test the white clay with my slips, and with underglazes. The Raiders are wondering if I have a good clay for plate-painting once more.

slab plate painted with coloured slips and sgraffitoed. c 6.5"
slab plate painted with underglazes c 6.5"

I had a couple of carved bowls in this firing. I’ve painted the insides with coloured slips but just sprayed the outsides with the slips. I didn’t want to paint all those grooves and I do like the effect.

Two carved bowls, up and down. Both are 3.5" tall and 6" and 6.5" wide

Finally, there are six new jugbirds.

a Seagull 5"
a Red-breasted Sapsucker 5"
a Northern Flicker & a Crow 5"
and old favourites.. a Spotted Towhee & a Cardinal 5"

Possibly my favourite pot in this batch, a comfortable big mug for tea, in my favourite colours. btw thank you Shelley for the use of your kiln for bisque and glaze firings for this lot.

Now I’ve cleaned out my wheel’s splash pan and have fished out the cone 10 Georgie’s Umpqua and Plainsman H555 to start work on my 2 cu feet of ware for a soda firing in May. I was on the waiting list and have secured a spot in the team firing then. Excited!

tall green mug 4.75"
]]> https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2026/04/18/april-pots/feed/ 2 Birds and Carving https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2023/05/19/birds-and-carving/ https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2023/05/19/birds-and-carving/#respond Fri, 19 May 2023 22:42:12 +0000 https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/?p=14560

A dozen jugbirds were ready for their glaze firing recently and work made by family members justified getting that done. Guests from Washington State were able to pick up their chosen Puffin jugbird on their way through here, en route to Calgary. I mailed a crested Kingfisher to another Washington State friend, just in time for his wife on Mothers’ Day. I plan to save the others here so that I have a few of my signature birds on hand for the upcoming ‘Solstice Shuffle’ on June 23rd. These are just some of the birds I make. 

Red-breasted Sapsucker, Northern Flicker, Spotted Towhee & Goldfinch
Red Cardinal, Bald Eagle, Puffin & Chickadee
Two Kingfishers, Green jugbird with a yellow bill, Spotted breast fellow
Kingfisher with his new owner (thanks for pic, Dale)

On January 1st I found a little dish on which I’d planned to do sgraffito. Feeling trapped by Winter and the absence of friends I made a quick drawing of our house and emphasized the fence. ‘Fenced-in’ is how I felt that day. Thank goodness we now have Spring flowers and can be outside!

'Fenced-in' dish
Carved pot with slip and terra sigillata

This little dish was unplanned, which is unusual for me. It needed carving, I felt, and the glazed yellow slip is a nice contrast to the smooth terra sigillata finish below. I had some interesting suggestions as to what it might contain. What do you think you’d put in there?

Here are the pots made by grandsons and d-i-l Jen on a couple of visits. These are their first attempts at using my wheel, and Lucas borrowed a couple of my bisque moulds to make a lunch plate and a vast Pope’s Hat platter. On a subsequent visit they applied underglazes. 

family pots

The May firing of the Potters’ Guild of BC gas kiln was scheduled for May 6th, rather earlier than I expected, but I decided to take my lonely five bisqued pots into the Mergatroid building in Vancouver for their cone 10/11 reduction firing anyway. As noted in an earlier blog, it gave me a Mount Pleasant and Granville Island day. And the pick-up day had me checking the grad show at Emily Carr U nearby. 

I was most anxious to see the results of more carving and sgraffito on stoneware. This pouring bowl was dipped in the guild’s Malcolm Davis shino glaze. With a bright orange inside and lots of variety outside, it’s splendid!

Shino-glazed bowl 7 1/2" x 4 1/4"
Celadon-glazed vase with top dipped in copper red glaze 6 1/2" tall x 4 1/2"

This bowl, with its rich coating of Temmoku glaze is delicious! Mashed potatoes, green vegetables anybody?

Temmoku carved bowl 7 1/2" x 3 3/4"

I had made a couple of pieces to try out different ways of using sgraffito. Here is another dinner plate on which I had painted bands of earthenware ‘peacock’ slip. Coating it with celadon has softened the drawing somewhat, and the slip is blue.  The smaller dish was carved when leather hard, and coated with black underglaze after the bisque firing, then wiped off. It was also glazed in my satiny Leach celadon.

sgraffito dinner plate 9 1/2" x 1 1/4"
sgraffito dish 7 3/4" x 1 1/4"

I plan to keep these pieces here for now, available in my studio. Get in touch for prices if you’d like to give one a home. The next photo shows a sweet new green glaze now available for folks using the PGBC kiln. Apparently it comes from Herman Venema’s studio closing. I want to make something that needs to be green! The shino koi and little green lego-based house are by Diane Espiritu.

I’d like to post some photos of the excellent talk by Port Moody ceramic artist-in-residence Max Yang last Wednesday but I have flowers to plant! Watch for that blog soon. 

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