Mug test #5 and grass

So this mug up above is a little blue. A little too blue. I am retesting it with a black liner, but I got a little crazy and did stripes instead of dots on the other one. So I guess I won't really know what this mug looks like with a black liner, will I?

This one above is okay, but something's missing. Maybe it'll grow on me, but the panel seems like a blank canvas. I'm trying to find a balance between boring and simple. The less going on with the pot, the more I usually like it.

I really like the mug above. I think this is the cup that I talked about in my post about cup shapes that I thought looked like it should go have tea and crumpets with it's big, fat, bow handle. Now it's all dressed up for the occasion. An interesting observation. When I glazed the inside, I wiped the drips off. Let the cup dry for a while. When I glazed the outside, I could see that the glaze was absorbing unevenly where I had wiped, and presumably where the cup was more damp. Really shows you how glaze thickness and such a subtle thing can affect the color.

Afternote: When I glazed mug test #6, I saw the same thing happening when I used this glaze combo again. Where I had wiped drips of blue glaze from the outside of the mug, the glaze seems to be repelled. This time I know it's not an issue of the mug being too damp, for I dried it a while in the sun. I think something in the glaze must be sealing the surface somehow, so I will need to be careful when glazing the inside of pots, or maybe light sanding over the spill area might break the surface.

A little detail of above cup.
Here's another stripey cup. I obviously like stripes and dots. I didn't put up all of the cups. Too many photos.

Adam and I are not really into lawn maintenance. It just seems like a silly waste of time to me to be out there chopping all the grass off. We mow our front yard occasionally so as not to offend our neighbors delicate sensibilities, but pretty much let the rest go and mow a path where we want, or need to go. The benefit to this is obvious. My backyard is a haven for butterflies, grasshoppers and frogs. When the wind, or Daisy disturbs the grass, I have seen a half dozen butterflies I didn't even know were there, shoot to the sky. You don't usually see that on two inch grass.

Here's a link to a page I was just looking at by Jeffrey Guin at the blog Clean Mud. He made a raku kiln from a garbage can and has very easy to follow instructions. If you're interested in Raku, scroll to the bottom of the page where it starts and follow it up.