Yay! Maybe.... Or not?

After last week's post, I tried a bowl without the line decoration.
Let me know what you think!

I trailed a line of my matte glaze all around the rim, and love the way it ran on the inside, and how it blends with the stripes on the outside. I need to work on consistency in terms of applying my darker stripe, and clean up those black pin stripes - I need to get them thinner! I also want to do some fine tuning on the form, beef up the rim a touch, and improve the curve of the bowl. But otherwise, as for the overall shape, I'm pleased.

I'm also anxious to try this with a pale, apple green and a complimentary shade of blue? yellow? orange?. I was trying these early on in this testing series, and I'm almost ready to go back and try again. First, I need to head to the paint department of my local hardware store to stare at paint chips to help me narrow down which oxides to start playing with. But it may be a while before I get the chance to get there.

I'm excited and anxious about these stripes all at the same time. I have to admit, I feel like I'm being pulled in all sorts of opposing directions when it comes to trying all this new stuff with my glazes and my work. It's a little unsettling and even stressful to some extent. It's kinda like heading out somewhere without really knowing where you are going or how to get there, but hoping you make it there regardless.

And I still can't shake this urge to decorate. I wasn't happy with my trailed linework on the previous version of this bowl but I feel like this one is missing something. I'm not sure what exactly that means, and where that needs to go. Part of me just wants to go explore fabric stores, but with my schedule filling up, I can't see finding time for that any time soon. Maybe it's best to push it into my subconscious and let that part of my brain work on it for a while.

And as for all of my testing: you may recall, when I first began writing this little series of posts, I mentioned that I was currently exploring two different directions with my new line of work. These stripes have been one direction. Stay tuned to see where else my creative mind had been going!