Search results

  1. michaelj

    Anyone's Ginkgo still sleeping?

    My ginkgo trees fake me out every year, without fail. Your buds look good. Give it time.
  2. michaelj

    Colorado’s Ceramics

    I posted that in the wrong thread... Sorry.
  3. michaelj

    What makes a great pot?

    That is first and foremost. If you use a low fire terracotta that doesn't fully vitrify, or you under fire your clay, it will absorb water, and with every frost, that water inside the clay will expand and contract, and over time - sometimes a very short amount of time - it will destroy the...
  4. michaelj

    Hi, my first bonsai

    Welcome to crazy! You're off to a better start than I got. You butchered it fairly well for a beginner. Did you style it at the club? If not, bring it with you next time and see how many different opinions you can collect. In the meantime, get a couple more trees, because this one is going to...
  5. michaelj

    Colorado’s Ceramics

    Yesterday, I wired up a $4 wholesale nursery juniper I've had for a year or two, and potted her up in a tall kurinuki pot.
  6. michaelj

    Colorado’s Ceramics

    That's a very interesting glaze. It has all the visual features of a runny glaze, but the stability to go on all the way to the bottom and not actually run.
  7. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I pruned three little Chinese elms that I want to make into shohins in the near future.
  8. michaelj

    2025 North American Bonsai Pottery Competition

    In the studio where I do my work, I've seen so many really cool looking forms that would make an awesome looking bonsai pot, but they'd be a massive pain when it comes time to repot. There can be a place for some of them for accents, or for just the right tree, but it's pretty limited.
  9. michaelj

    2025 North American Bonsai Pottery Competition

    Stage 1 Entry judging will be conducted by Bill Valavanis, Laurent Darrieux, and Ron Lang. Stage 2 Online competition judging will be conducted by Ron Lang and Sara Rayner. Stage 3 In-Person competition judging panel will be Jonas Dupuich and Roy Minarai.
  10. michaelj

    2025 North American Bonsai Pottery Competition

    That sounds fun. I might submit something. I've been working on a form that I really like. I think I'll try making about ten of them and hope that one is good enough to make the field.
  11. michaelj

    Squirrels are destroying my Chinese elm!

    I bought an air rifle because there was this pack of three squirrels that kept raiding my garden, knocking trees off their benches and taunting my dogs. After bagging my 36th squirrel, I realized that those three squirrels didn't keep coming back 10 times a day, they just all look like...
  12. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I made a slab. I love being able to made slabs with exactly the texture and exactly the shape I want for a forest planting. Way better than looking at a zillion rocks trying to find the perfect rock slab.
  13. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    It came out of the kiln looking about the way I had hoped.
  14. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    This pot, which I plan to put a thin, multi-trunk cascading or weeping tree in, is intended to look like an eroding mesa with spring water coming out midway up the face. Top will be greyish silvery gloss; the middle will be Earth tones, and below that, blue with bits of white and some reitz...
  15. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    Thank you. I put some low-fire foraged clay from the Mojave Desert on the surface beneath the carved out portion of the rim. It melts and flows like molasses at cone 10, which was a bummer when I tried to make a pot out of it, but I've found a fun use for it. It turns any glaze on top of it into...
  16. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I finished my latest cascade pot.
  17. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I did this Friday, actually. As often happens, one of my clubs explicitly asked me to put something "unusual" into their show, so after making a "pot" out of slate tiles to resemble an old Irish stone house ruin, I put this together.
  18. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    Made a couple new unorthodox pots.
  19. michaelj

    California Juniper finally ready for show

    Damn. Win. Winner. Winnest.
  20. michaelj

    Possibility for a new source for 1/8" to 1/4" Pumice

    OMG. Y'all pay that much for pumice?
  21. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    And this, which made it through bisque firing, is going into the ^ 10 kiln, along with a bunch of other stuff.
  22. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I stuck this pot into the kiln for a ^6 firing.
  23. michaelj

    The 2023 Christmas Gift List thread

    Brown mason stain, man. 10 pounds of it. I want to make some more unglazed pots, and all the good brown clays and slips seem to be low or medium fired, so I need to add some stain to my cone 10 recipes.
  24. michaelj

    What did you do today? Show us Pic Required

    I have no clue how this is going to look after being fired. I wanted natural cracking off the outer clay slip, but I think I let it dry too quickly. The cracks might become too severe.
Back
Top Bottom