Start at the beginning

Prepare a brown clay vessel and lid, firm them up a bit, and make white clay eye balls and teeth.

Apply a little pressure

Press in eye sockets and place eye balls; press in mouth

The eyes have it

Flatten fat coils for eye lids and use smaller coils for bottom of eyes.
Smooth around the eye sockets to hold in the eyeballs. If clay is soft enough, this happens easily. Use sponge for finishing.

The nose knows

Form a nose; Slip and score. This is heavier – even with soft clay use slip.
Smooth in the sides of the nose. Insert tool for “pick-able” nostrils. This forces the bumps at the side of the nose.
With a larger jug this can be done with a finger for authenticity.

Everyone needs a mouth

Press teeth into small coil for gums . Place gums into the mouth. Some show their bottom teeth and require two applications of gums.
Coils for lips to frame the mouth – smooth in and shape.

Take a little break....

Time now for the jug to talk to you – who is it in there and what’s he thinking and doing? My hot-tea-with-honey break helped my friend to start talking!

Express Yourself

A wriggle in the nose and the use of a throwing stick to poof out a cheek. You can do this with your knuckle if your hand fits inside the opening.
(Note “Poof out” – that’s a technical term. You know you've arrived when you can use "poof out" correctly!)

Eye brows add to the expression

A little surprise in the coil eye brows that get smoothed onto the forehead.

All Ears...

He needs ears as well as eyes to tell his story…..

It's in the details

The story he told me was that he was scared of bees!

Flipping the lid

Make sure the lid still fits after all the sculpting you’ve done – adjust the vessel as well as the lid as needed, then trim down for the right shaped chapeau.

Underglazed details

Ah-ha! He’s is a city boy who has a healthy respect for the string of a bee. Underglaze the eyes and we’re almost done.

Ready to dry

He’s obviously a sweetie – he’s got several little bee friends visiting.
I introduce you to Benjamin…no (are you ready for this) ….
Ben Stung!

It's not done yet - drying, bisquing, glazing and the knowledge that at any point he could shatter or explode - it will be a few weeks before Ben Stung is ready for his debut on http://facejugsbysun,blogspot.com/ but watch here for the finishing of Ben.

Made it through the Bisque!

So - Ben Stung dried to leather hard without losing an ear. And he made it through the first firing - the "bisque" firing - without his nose exploding off his face. So far so good. He may have preferred it if the bees had been knocked off... but such is the life of a face jug!

He's transparent

White clay was used for Ben's teeth and eyes in order for those features to be white. They must be protected from any glaze that would cover the white clay. Ditto for those lovely yellow bees. The features on his face are covered in a transparent glaze.

Waxing - but not bikini

The green goo on Ben's eyes and bottom, as well as on the rim of his hat/lid is a wax that will keep a coloured glaze from covering the white clay and will stop glaze from coating the clay where the face jug will be setting on a kin shelf. Glaze that hits the shelf will attach Ben to the shelf (creating a very large base that is not ever intended!)and/or create a terrible mess for clean up. Other kiln users truly appreciate it when you do not cover the shelves they need in glaze.

And so he is glazed

And now Ben Stung has glaze. Each face jug is glazed different, to suit the personality. In Ben's case his hat/lid is done in transparent. The speckles in the dark clay will create a lovely texture for his hat and it will preserve the yellow bees. You can see how the wax has resisted the glaze and left the eyes, teeth, and bees their proper colours. The colour chosen for his face will not be revealed at this time. Why? Because it is not all that unusual for the glaze to come out a different colour than chosen and creating false expectations at this point isn't sensible (and would make it appear that I don't know what I'm doing).

In fact, look long and hard at him now because this could be the past time Ben is seen. The glaze firing has a few dangers:

• Glaze running and sticking to the shelf in a way that destroys Ben when he's removed;


• The glaze being a colour you can't possibly abide and it's only fair to put Ben out of his misery;


• A fault that made it through the bisque firing takes this opportunity to explode (and will destroy the pieces adjacent in the kiln, as well as maiming Ben);


• The glaze "crawls", leaving unsightly bald patches which can be refired, but seldomly prove successful;


• A succesful firing can turn horribly wrong, and the base of the piece can inexplicably drop out, even a couple of days later; and


• Never forget that in the course of unloading, things have been known to drop when handled carelessly!

That's just to name a few of the dangers Ben Stung now faces as he enters the kiln for a second time.

So keep an eye here. I hope that none of these things happen and Ben Stung will make his debut here in the next couple of days!

Ben Stung here - making his official debut! Nothing exploded, ran, stuck, dropped... we seem to be home free! And his story? Well:

Ben Stung has a healthy fear of bees;
At the pain of their sting, he won’t sneeze.
The bees all know that he is afraid;
They’ve all come to visit and have stayed!

Ben is 5 inches tall without his bees covered chapeau. The hat/lid increasees his height to 7 inches. While the glaze didn't come out quite as expected, it is a nice compliment to his hat and shows off his friends the bees quite nicely!