elusivek | Entries tagged with ceramics

A lot of people in Macau must be feeling somewhat annoyed LOL. Typhoon Wipha is a T8 and also just announced will go up to T10, so it's gonna be bad. But I also think we've learnt from Typhoon Hato, so the people should be better prepared. I was planning to lounge in bed, but this old man must have some Alzheimer's or Dementia thing where he just wants company, so here I am sitting with him outside in the living room with him. At least this way he's quiet and snoozing in peace, otherwise he'll just be non-stop barking. We woke up this morning early and luckily the weather wasn't too bad yet, so although there were road closures, we were still able to go somewhere and have them do their morning business. Which, mission accomplished!

My orange car is done and back! But now I'm worried because my parking spot is against an old wall with a hanging tree branch. And I am worried that the wall will fall over or the branch will fall off or something. We'll see later today or tomorrow.

I have been keeping diligent and running. Last week the vet asked if I went on holiday or something, apparently I've got a nice tan going on.

Yesterday I went to visit my friend's dog Kinako. No fun at all, this dog is so aloof. Haha but I managed to make the dog interact with me.

Got myself an airbrush for glazing. But I spent too much time finishing up last week's piece so didn't get to try it yet. Maybe next week I can try it.

Finished glazing up this piece that's supposed to be Menina. And then I checked on the other two I made last week, should be dry enough to go for bisque fire. Let's see if they get put in the kiln this week.

oomigosh sorry. Life has been just so so so so busy. I guess it's a good thing? Work has been pleasantly busy with ad hoc stupid things happening (the IT email system would refuse to "release" certain emails sent to me... it's just OTPs which I NEED for work related things)

I've been trying to read more and the other day, just for fun, I bought a small 6" ereader from Taobao. It was like... more or less USD $40 for it. The OS is a little funky, it would take some time to get used to it, but, once books are set in there, then it's great. I guess my eyesight is still good, I still think the text is a bit too big even on the small screen. I think if they can go just one point smaller then it would be perfect. I think I'm going to use the tiny ereader for when I go on holiday. It weighs next to nothing (yeah, it's small) and is very convenient to just throw it back into the bag. But then maybe I'll think it looks more like a phone and then prefer to bring the larger devices again. Dunno. We'll see?

I have been diligent! i have been running consistently lately. Yesterday I even went to a running shoe trial event for a new PUMA model. I will admit it IS indeed pretty comfortable and the rebound made running very eash for the knees, but I didn't buy them. My pair of Nikes are still relatively new so, once I rack up the 500km on them then I will think about getting new shoes. At least now, I know not to limit my search to just Nike.

Here's a few kitty and doggy photos LOL. I'm just trying to play on my Switch, my friends. I got back to Final Fantasy X and I guess I've been a little spoiled by the newer games where we can rotate the view? I kept trying to rotate the view there LOL but view rotate wasn't a thing yet on that Final Fantasy installment. I'm still not where I had stopped in my previous playthrough on the PS2 (never finished because the disc later skidded and would stop at one specific point) and I've already forgotten how unbelievably sad the storyline is. I went ahead and read some spoilers and ooooh it just hits the heart even more.

I've been feeding these kitties that live at the place where I park my car. The black and white one (Tuxedo cat?) is pretty friendly with me now, he would come up to me and rub my legs as I'm preparing his dinner. I can also touch him now but only for a bit, touch him a bit longer and he eyes me with contempt and walks away. The other tiger stripe-y brown-grey is still super wary of me. Can't see if it's a he or she, it would come up to near me for the food but would run away as soon as I look at it. There's actually a third black and white cat that is TOTALLY afraid of me, I've only seen that one twice. But I do have a third bowl ready for whenever that one shows up.

And ooooh. I took some time off from my usual ceramic doggies and kitties planters, so that I could use the wheel and throw some items, then learn this, Portuguese Faience.

The flowers and the lemons were the actual thing being taught. You can see I very soon ditched that and started to do my own thing LOL!

Watch on YouTube

There's a bit to talk about, but not really much.

I've past my reading phase, I've past my gaming phase, I've now circled back to my Netflix binging phase. Anyway.

Today I went to the ceramics workshop again. The workshop's planning is really abysmal. If you have advertised that certain days are for the open workshops, then keep that schedule. And if anything ad hoc comes up, say something.

So today I was all ready to start on a new piece, but when I went there, they said they very last-minute got a particular workshop for 30 people. So they asked me to work in another room. Which was fine, really, but then, when you are offering an open workshop and people pay by the hour there, and you supposedly provide certain tools to people for the open workshop... then don't use those tools as something else.

Basically I needed to use this slab making tool to make slabs. They used it as a table!

So actually I couldn't do what I originally went there to do, if I only knew how to use the slab. Luckily, I learnt the original way (making slabs by hand) so I was still able to start on a new piece. But had I had access to the slab machine it'd be heaps easier to do and faster.

Anyway, I previously took the dog home to color it at home, and this other cat is supposedly dry enough to go into the kiln. Fingers crossed!

Going to fly out to Seoul next week for work. So supposedly was to return on Saturday, but I figured since staying another day did not affect the flight price, and all I had to do was pay an extra hotel night for myself, so I decided to do so. So I will have one free day in Seoul. Not sure what I plan to do. I'm not too familiar with South Korea. I'd probably just stay in Myeongdong as the language intimidates me (don't understand it and can't even read it).

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Have to say I'm pretty proud of this piece I made! Going to give it to my colleague tomorrow! (He's retiring)

So much has happened that... while I don't recall the exact sequence of what happened first, I'm grouping them together by topic.

I went on another 10km run! I was like a couple seconds slower than my last 10km run. I don't plan to run a half marathon (21km) but I do plan to do a training plan towards a half marathon. But I think if I decide to do that I actually have to incorporate some kind of strength training, which would mean a gym, which would mean I'd be too lazy to follow through.

The Line Friends Hotel and the Cafe have finally opened! At least that's one more thing in the DONE part of the task list.

I've been having fun at the ceramics workshop. The timing is a little inconvenient but I've been managing so far. I have 2 planters ready to be final burnt, and 2 more for the first burn then coloring again. Actually one of the dogs has a shaky leg LOL. It actually came off as I was drying it out. Well. Hopefully... it stays!

Sooo.... Mom was recently talking about really missing Nutmeg (our orange cat). At the shelter that I volunteer in, they had a sudden influx of orange cats. I asked how strict they are about the selection process and they said since I'm a volunteer and I'm a "trusted individual", they practically just let me have the cat.

But after staying for a week, the cat isn't really too human-friendly. Probably needs some more time to get used to us.

I spent an afternoon playing with the long feather thing with the cat and the cat now basically sticks to me.

The little rascal is indeed causing quite a bit of trouble (pushed one of my orchid plants down, broke a stem, broke a few pots from my Sis, it's basically a nuisance.

Mom had half a mind to ask me to return the cat (what comes in doesn't go out, sorry) and yesterday, in jest, she told her sister (my aunt), "I can have even more cats if I want!"

And look what happened today!

My Sis was walking Max and another dog-parent-friend said there's a cat at the entrance to the flower shop (but flower shop still closed)

It's tiny! It's the size of my palm! It's Frankenstein Cat! Look at the markings! Orange and brown tiger stripes! And we already have a babysitter in line for that. But no, it's not going to be called FrankenCat because we already have a Frankie (the Frenchie) at home. Don't want so many Franks there.

In the pottery class, we were ask to make a "raku" kiln as a group work. After much brainstorm, we decided to make a "Daruma" since it practically is a round-ish shape, the hollowed interior has enough space to put mini clay pieces, and we thought the eyes can serve as those... holes for air circulation to feed the fire.

So, we made this!

But then it needed another hole in the back to feed the gas tube, and the cover for that hole needed a handle, so we made something like a tail... so now this DARUMA looks like a monkey. After painting the front, we decided to paint a butt since there's a tail. Monkey in Japanese is "Saru", so now, we name this raku kiln the SARUMA! I even painted the butt hole.

The master wanted me to search for the monkey of some cartoon and I kept having to add "butt" to the search for reference, eventually I decided to stop searching as the results started to show some kinky cartoon spicey images.

Next week we'll sign our names, then this SARUMA goes into a kiln, and then we are going to make some mini pottery so that we can burn them in this raku kiln.

Our most recent class was slip casting. So there's moulds, and you pour in liquid clay, let it set a bit, then pour it all out. The master wanted us to try to do layers with colour, so then we can carve the outermost layers and see the inside with another colour.

He had 2 moulds of sake bottles and said we'd take turns to do it. But when the first people were doing it, it was taking a long time, so we went to look for other moulds. I saw this bamboo themed cup or, vessel, or whatever, and figured I'd make a bamboo.

Originally, I had planned a design of dark blue outer layer, then I'd carve a circle to show the yellow moon (second layer colour) against a silhouette of a cat (couldn't decide if remain the cat on the outermost blue layer or let it go in deeper)... but after finding this bamboo cast, I decided, nah.

However, the master only had ready made blue, yellow, red and white porcelain slip. So, he had me mix a colour. Going in blind, I used a lot of an apple green mixed with a bit of dark grass green and a tiny tiny bit of phoenix green (dark blue green kind of thing). I don't know the final colour coming out though. The master said he'd make a cookie to see what the color would be like. Okay...? Meanwhile, I have to get to carving.

Using a bamboo shaped and green coloured thing has rendered my initial moon and cat design moot, so... without much thinking, I thought I'd make a bamboo pattern on the sides.

And then, promptly figured out, the outer layer was a bit too thick. The master said to keep the outer later a bit thicker so we can allow for some mistakes, but this has made carving designs a bit difficult.

Anyway, for now, one side bamboo is done, I have to make the other side next week. It's gonna be a pain though, as just those 3 rods of bamboo gave me a lot of headache already. The other side has 4 sticks of bamboos LOL, I might have to change the design a bit. I'll hunt for my set of wood carving tools and bring them to the next class, I think the carving tools I have would probably be a bit better for what I have to do, and going in so deep (because the first layer is too thick). Next time I know, maybe just keep the first layer slip cast for a minute (he had us wait for more than 2 minutes).

I probably should wait until the whole thing comes out of the kiln before posting, but I'm impatient. I can't wait to see my friend's design though, she was planning on a Van Gogh-esque Starry Night kind of swirls. It's not going to be easy, especially since we have to go in so deep.

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Agueda Umbrella
kat (DW: elusivek | LJ: notte0)
❤︎ loves dogs, dark chocolate, and books.
★ doesn’t exactly hate cats.
◆ hates white chocolate.
more?
I read books :-)

January 2026

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Page generated Wednesday, 7 January 2026 16:26

escapades of the elusive kat

taking on the world one day at a time

Entries tagged with ceramics

Typhoon Wipha

Time for an update

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Charles the Chow Chow

So… this happened!

The SARUMA

Ceramics: Bamboo on bamboo… for bamboo

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January 2026

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