Catherine Cheek

Catherine "Kater" Cheek is a writer and artist.

Author's posts

Oct 14

Green Flower Bowl

By Kater in Pottery

This is the first of eight bowls I made, sort of a set. The clay body is soldate 60, and is rougher than I like for everyday ware. The green color comes from slip, which I etched away to make the flower design.

bowl, green slip, high fire, soldate 60

Oct 11

Green Fishscale Bowl

By Kater in Pottery

This design is a traditional Japanese design. I started to use it while I was learning pottery in Japan, and it remains one of my favorites. The green color is slip, which I scratched away with a scgraffito tool.

bowl, fishscale design, high fire, scgraffito, slip

Oct 08

Green Flower Grid Bowl

By Kater in Pottery

This design looks much better on paper or other flat surfaces than it does on a curved surface. I found it quite difficult to get the design as even as I like. It’s not one I’ve used before, though I’ve seen similar ones on Japanese textiles and paper.

bowl, green slip, high fire, scgraffito, textile design

Oct 05

Yellow Tiles

By Kater in Pottery, Tiles

These are the same as the blue speckled tiles that I made, except that I chose a bright yellow. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with these, but I’d like to do a lot more mosaic projects, and I figured that having a selection of tiles wouldn’t hurt.

mosaic, stamp, tile, yellow glaze

Oct 03

Blue Tiles

By Kater in Pottery, Tiles

I made these just so I’d have enough ware to fill the kiln. I rolled out slabs of 1/4 inch clay and stamped it with some of my commercially purchased rubber stamps. Then I cut them with small cookie cutters designed for working with clay. The glaze choice wasn’t the best; in other firings, this …

stamp, tile