When I opened the can, the scent wafting up from the lump of bright turqouise Play-Doh sent my brain spinning back to childhood. Who can forget the scent of Play-Doh? It smells so good.

The question begs: why is Lynne playing with Play-Doh?

The answer is simple my friends. I wanted to try out some different textures for my pot that’s in the works, and what better cheap medium to try with?

Play-Doh doesn’t quite have the consistency of real clay and I was making things tiny since I was using only one can of dough per each object d’art. So, bear with me, okay?

This was my first attempt at replicating something like I did in class. I didn’t take a photo of this one before I added the texture to it, but you’ll see it in the next one.

It really needed to be taller to see the texture better.

Here is the state the pot I am working on in class is in. Coils of clay stacked on each other. I pinched the ends for something different and staggered the beginning and ends. My real pot is much more uniform and a lot less lumpy looking than this one is, but I think you get the idea of what it looks like without any kind of texture added, right?

So, same Play-Doh pot with Texture 1:

After the first texture I needed to re-roll the coils so the pot is a slightly different height, but here it is with Texture 2 with an added little button adorned with Texture 1:

Which do you like better? Texture 1 or Texture 2? No texture at all? The bright pink one is also shown in Texture 2 since I forgot to take a photo of it in Texture 1. Doh ...

(That was intended as a cute pun for those of you that didn’t get it and have never seen the Simpsons.) Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you’d vote and tell me which one you prefer.

Next I am going to mix all four cans of Play-Doh together to get more “doh” to work with. What color do you think I will end up with mixing hot turquoise, neon pink, dark lilac and not-so-neon-pink? We didn’t have these colors when I was a kid!

Yesterday was pottery class day. I have to say that in a way I was not looking too forward to it. Which was silly, really.

We walked into the studio and there was my apple sitting on the table all nice and dry. Unfortunately it still looked the same as it did last week. I said as much to Kathy (the instructor) and she said “don’t be dissing your apple so much, everybody in the other class loved it.” I felt immediately better after that and even better yet when I saw what one woman in the other class had made last week. Yes, I felt much much better about my apple.

I took my cue from my other classmate and this week brought an old shirt to put on over my clothes. I was glad I did because today was sanding day for the two pieces we created last week. I was able to sculpt the apple just a tad but left some little dents since after all, no apple has a perfectly smooth skin. It will be fun to do the glazes next week.

As we worked we could see it starting to snow outside! The flakes didn’t last long before we heard the sound of sleet pelting against the studio windows.

I also got to see what my bowl looked like after it was turned out of its forming bowl. Not bad. Not bad at all! As I was sanding down the edges to make them smoother, some small pieces broke off from the rim. I wasn’t too worried as it made it look all that more artistic. Everyone else had done a different texture on each of their clay slabs that went into forming their bowl, kind of like a patchwork quilt. I guess I am a not a “busy” person because I used the same textures on each of my slabs. The look turned out very cohesive and because I varied the pattern it didn’t look too matchy-matchy. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that it holds together in the firing process. I wish now I had taken the camera to get a shot of it just in case. At least if it doesn’t make it through the firing process I’d have something to show for it!

Today’s project was making an extruded vase/bowl. We formed a base by tracing around an upside down bowl, then rolled out different lengths of coils of clay which we then wound around the base to whatever height we desired. I tried to stagger the beginning and endings of the coils so it would be more interesting. I am still debating how to finish mine off: whether to use a ravioli wheel cutter to introduce some texture like I did with a pot I made before (way back when), or to leave it in its natural form. So, since I was undecided I wrapped it in plastic to keep it moist until next week. I was kind of liking how it was looking in its natural state, so we’ll see how I feel about it next week.

I think I’m going to be sad when it’s over. Maybe I’ll take another round of lessons ...

The long shadows of fall are upon us and we seem to be caught in-between the seasons.

Most of our trees are barren now and we are transitioning between fall and winter. Today we had snow/rain/sleet all at the same time. Mother Nature couldn’t seem to make up her mind. It’s time for wood fires and cozy nights.

The time change nudges us along, forcing us to take up our inside habits with the earlier setting of the sun. The dogs and cats are really confused about when they should be fed and when they should wake us up.

Only a few short months ago we were still swimming in the pool at 8:30 p.m. Now we can’t even imagine that scenario as we are tucked cozily inside, either watching television or sitting around the wood fire exchanging chats with each other about how our day went.

All but one of our trees in the back has now lost its leaves. Our mighty oak in the back yard is our last holdout. As is always the case.

I love having this majestic oak presiding over our back yard but it comes with its minuses too. Like a sea of acorns.

The squirrels can’t even keep up with the abundance of acorns. The dogs go outside and munch on the nuts all the time. Here is one big nut: Bella.

Johnny does not pick all of them up so some raking will need to be done. I think this year the acorn production has outdone itself! Both with our big oak in the front yard as well as our back yard giant.

I’m ready for the transition of seasons. At least I’d like to think I am.

P.S. This post is for my sister who called today wanting to know if I had keeled over from all the hard work I blogged about in the last post because I hadn’t posted in so long. It’s nice to know my health is measured by how often I blog. Thanks sis for keeping me current!

Yesterday was certainly my day for yard work. I am not quite sure what possessed me to finish stacking the cord of wood we had delivered several months ago. I was just going to stack a little bit of it to make more progress. (Last week I stacked about 1/3 of it.) It was a nice sunny day with temperatures in the low 40’s by the time I started. The dogs helped. Well, sort of. Alex and Hailey supervised from the deck and Bella was a huge help in moving the wood piece by piece. The only problem was she moved it out into the yard instead of over by where it was being stacked! She happily chewed on bark while I loaded the wheelbarrow up, wheeled it over to the wood stack and started stacking.

I got one more row done and thought to myself “just one more wheelbarrow-ful to just get the third row started ...” After each consecutive wheelbarrow-ful I vowed it to be the last. The stack kept shrinking and shrinking until I could not leave that little bit unstacked. My back was aching but I persevered and before I knew it — violá! — the job was finished!

The last two rows were done yesterday.

Such a pretty sight to my sore back! Now I don’t have to feel guilty any more when it rains since the wood can be tidily covered up now.

That was the morning’s work.

Just after noon our lawn tractor Johnny (as in John Deere) returned home from his spa trip to Goshen, New York where he underwent a transformation. His return home has been greatly anticipated. He was being fitted with a new bagging attachment so we can now pick up all our leaves. For the past few years we’ve just been mulching the leaves, but our grass was slowly being smothered. Plus, it would take hours of driving slowly over and over the leaves to break them up enough. Tedious.

And my oh my do we have leaves! I think in some spots they are over two inches thick! You see, we hadn’t done anything about our leaves because we were waiting on Johnny and it’s taken several weeks between the time we ordered the bagger and they came to pick Johnny up.

The guy who delivered Johnny stayed to make sure I knew what I was doing. He shook his head when he saw the amount of leaves on the ground and told me I wasn’t going to get very far before I would need to dump the bags. He was right. I took one tiny swipe and jammed up the whole blower and leaf chute. I’m glad he was around to show me how to un-jam it! Plus he told me I should probably go over the leaves without the bags attached to mulch them up a little so there wouldn’t be so much mass. He demonstrated and bits of leaves, dust and anything else the mower picked up flew crazily through the air. Oh boy.

I knew I needed to get as much done as I could since we were expecting rain (and it is indeed rainy and dark out there this morning), so after a brief visit with neighbor Kim I changed into my old yard shoes and shirt and got started. I first mulched both front yards and it went pretty fast. The regular mowing blades seemed to mulch the leaves up better than the mulching blades! I kicked up a lot of dust and I think most of it was coming from the mulched leaves. A haze hung over the whole street. Quite the mess without the bags attached! I didn’t realize just how dirty a job it was until I needed to add some gas. I looked down at myself and was horrified! I was covered from head to toe in a thick film of dusty dirt. These pants were once black ... yuck.

Once I had taken the sheer mass of the leaves down, I put the bags back on and proceeded to pick them up. It worked like a charm except for a few times when I didn’t dump the bags as soon as I should have and ended up jamming the blower attachment, but overall it went very smoothly. And the end result was very pleasing!

Here are the before and after shots of one side of our front yard:

I only got one side of the yard completely done but at least the dirty mulching part of the job is completely done (at least in front). I wish I could have finished the rest before today’s rain but it was not to be. At least we don’t have that heavy carpet of leaves covering the grass anymore. The rest of the job should be easier. Next year we can keep up with the leaves as they fall and it should be a real breeze!

A very satisfying day of work.

Today I do not plan to be covered in dirt. No sir. I am going shopping to Garden State Plaza (the biggest mall in our area) with neighbor Kim. I hope to come home with a new pair of boots (thanks to the generosity of my in-laws). A perfect way to spend a rainy day!

Today was my first pottery class that I am taking through the town’s adult education classes. I tried pottery once before way back in the late 80’s but I’ve pretty much forgotten everything I knew. If I really ever knew anything at all about it! All I remember is that for some reason our class time was cut short and the instructor ended up doing all our glazing and firing for us. One pot I did hand-building and the other one I threw on the wheel. It was my first experience with “throwing” and I quickly realized why they called it that when my would-be vase literally flew off the wheel and landed on the floor like I had thrown it there.

Today was different. After finding my way through the security gate (she lives in a really cool gated community where all the houses are sprinkled among the woods throughout a very large complex) me and another woman were were welcomed into Kathy’s home. She wanted to show us things she had made so we could get an idea that we weren’t limited to just making small pots or (god forbid) the dreaded school-project-ashtray. It was also a tour of her very large home as we peeked into each and every bedroom (including her own) to see the object d’art that she had crafted. After the house ceramic tour we marched down to her basement where her pottery studio is. A work bench, a wheel, and two kilns, (one large; one small) took up one room while the the other part housed glazes, forms and molds, and other tools of the trade.

She’s a very open and friendly person, and obviously a very talented one if her pieces are anything to go by.

There are only three of us in the class and both of the other women have had a lot more experience with this than I have. One woman who has already been taking the class for two weeks (she started early due to being gone for the next two weeks) was already on to making lovely wall plaques and leaf platters. She had imprinted the clay with a leaf from a water lily and some other exotic elephant ear leaf for a large platter. Gorgeous! She said she’s done it all before—only 30 years ago. She said she’s taking multiple art classes. I got the impression she was not there to learn but to have use of the tools, glazes, and kilns. The other woman who arrived with me has also had a lot of experience, plus she paints. Me? Well, I guess I feel a little inadequate right about then, but isn’t that what taking a class is all about? (The class was listed as Beginning/Intermediate.)

We did two things today. The first was a hand-built bowl. We took out our frustrations by throwing the ball of clay down onto the table to get all the bubbles out. When we reached the desired thickness we played around with different textures from Kathy’s basket of toys. I just grabbed what I thought looked interesting and started imprinting the clay with a variety of things. I think I took a coil of spring, some corrugated cardboard and a string of different sized beads. My bowl consisted of probably six or more slabs of clay, slightly overlapped and put into a plastic bowl lined with plastic wrap that served as a form. Once that was done we had to scrape, scrape scrape the inside until it was smooth with no sign of the overlapping pieces. I’m not sure my bowl is going to be very even in thickness, but c’est la vie!

The second thing we made was a ball shape. This time, we “bounced” the ball of clay on the table while trying not to flatten it until when we cut it in half we couldn’t see any bubbles. Then we hollowed out the center by pressing the clay down. We added some shards of some other kind of medium (not sure just what it was) in the middle of our ball so that it will rattle once fired. We could make our ball into anything we wanted. I made an apple with a stem and one leaf. It was pretty one dimensional, and I kept thinking it should somehow be more. But what? Apples don’t have a lot of texture to them ...

Meanwhile my co-class mate was whipping up a intricately carved pumpkin from her ball of clay. I was very impressed. Looking from one project to another, mine looked like a fifth grader had made it and hers looked like an artist had made it. Oh well.

Finally, when we were about to walk out the door, it occurred to me just what was wrong with my apple. What I had needed was an apple in front of me as a model. Apples go in at the top and slope slightly on the sides but mine was pretty much round all the way around. I wanted to grab it off the table and start over again but I didn’t. I did learn something though, so that’s good.

I think it’s going to be fun but I do wish everyone was starting on the same playing field. Why oh why do I have to be the only “beginner?”