Christmas, christmas presents, and christmas cats

This will be a long post since I have been a slacker and have a) not posted in forever and b) not had much to post because I've hardly been in the studio.   This is a combination of being busy, being lazy, and my back hurting.   My little brother was home for the break, and I was spending a lot of time with him, especially the last couple weeks before he went back to school on sat, and my grandma and aunt were in town for a few days a week ago.  I think also the holidays have made me feel like I'm allowed to be a little lazy :P  My back was pretty painful for a while, but last week I finally went to see a specialist, who had me get an xray (have not heard back about that yet), but more importantly he put me on celebrex, a prescription anti-inflamitory. It is AMAZING.  I feel so much better!  I was basically in pain whenever I was sitting down, it just ached almost constantly and was really stiff when I stood up after sitting for a while. Now I have almost no pain, and it is much less stiff. I am still trying to be careful with it, but man it feels so great to not hurt!

Yes I am still carving stuff every once in a while :P  I still have to paint some of the other vases.  Below are the bowls I made for my grandma before being fired. I forgot to take a photo of them finished before I gave them to her, but frankly I like them better before... They didnt turn out bad, but the yellow of the petals was so pale that it really needed an outline.  I suspected this before I fired, but I had just spent 6 hours painting pots, and I really needed to start the firing, so I did not outline them.  They are visable, but looked more striking at this stage.

One of the other rushed Christmas projects were these little cups a coworker ordered.  These were also painted with underglazes and fired in the electric kiln.  I kind of enjoyed painting on the b-mix, I think they turned out pretty well!

Christmas kitties!  Cinnamon and Sam sleeping in front of the tree :)

In case you were interested in the other forms of art I dabble in, here is an acrylic painting I did for a couple who I dog sit for.  Their oldest dog, Maggie, passed away in December, so I made this for them.  Its been forever since I've painted anything, so I was pretty pleased with out nice this turned out.  I was mostly concerned with ending up with something that was recognizable as Maggie :)