New colors, going vibrant!

Am on a roll with some new colors, primarily reds. Off and on over the years I've used some reds, mainly in small part for highlights or decorating edges. A while back I went to see Peter Max and had a burst of primary color pottery energy. It didn't last long as I lean toward natural colors, earthy tones, blues and similar.

However, recently I decided to experiment some with the reds that have been languishing.

Reds can be finicky. Part of the reason I haven't done much with them (aside from liking my earth and ocean glazes) is that the reds I use can't be fired the same way I normally fire. I have to get a big enough batch of work going to justify firing up the kiln. I haven't been in a red mood ;-)

Now I've found a whole group of my glazes that seem to work well being fired with the reds, although a few I had in the batch will need to be fired again so I won't be including them in the future!

The red glazes can't be close to other colors, they need a lot of oxygen and they have to be fired fast. Normally I fire slow and add a holding time at the end. Sometimes I ramp up slowly, depending on the glazes and clays.

I've been trying to figure out what the new color scheme reminds me of since pulling the first pieces out of the kiln. It was driving me batty as I looked at them on the shelf with the lights hitting the colors.

At my last show a number of us talked about the subject at different times. Everyone seemed to like the colors, but no one helped.

As I sat here to write this it hit me... remember when you were a kid how you'd take multi-colored crayons and cover a piece of paper? then you'd cover it entirely with black paint or maybe a black crayon? then etch through to make a really cool (or so we thought) picture?

Voila. That's my new pots. Of course, with these I've etched away a lot of the black paint!

You'll see hints of purple, green and lots of red in the new color scheme. I'm going to play with using some blues and other colors, but want the red and black to be the predominate colors that catch the eye.

The problem with these colors is that I'm not really sure how many people have color schemes that work with such strong colors. Howeve, as with most of my work, I make it like I want it and then hope others like what I created, too.

These pieces would make nice accent items, and as with most of my work, look best with lights hitting them, sunlight being the best.

On a side note, I remember when we were looking for a new house a few years back. We found one that was decorated in rooster. As in roosters that peck on the ground and make lots of noise if they're not pictures on a wall. Loved the house, but didn't care for a house that didn't seem to have a room without roosters. Even though the owners wanted to sell, they wouldn't repaint or sell to anyone who didn't like / love their roosters. I guess my new pieces would have worked pretty well with all the black and red roosters!

I think I'm gonna call the new group crayon resist.