Squirrel Watering Can Workshop Preview

Annie is joining us for a special preview of her upcoming Squirrel Watering Can Workshop!

Sign Up for the Workshop Here:
https://clayshare.com/checkout/new?o=210495

Premium members, make sure to use the member discount code. You can find that in the ClayShare Community.

Bonjour everyone and welcome into the Clay Share studio. I just flew in from Paris and boy my arms are tired. Never gets old, does it? All right, we have a special surprise tonight. We have Annie Chrysberg joining us and she’s going to give us a little sneak peek of her upcoming workshop with us on her squirrel watering cans and planters. Now, this workshop starts tomorrow and it’s a virtual workshop from 1 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. So during that time, it’s live. It’s happening. You can be part of the discussion. You can be watching. You can be interacting. But after the workshop ends, it’s recorded. So you can watch the replay. And that’s part one. And then next week, the 25th of October, we have part two from 1 to 3 again. So, it’s a 4hour workshop. You get both parts in this workshop. And yes, you get replays forever, forever and ever and ever. So, if you can’t make the workshop because of other commitments, we understand. Maybe you are going to be in Paris and can’t make it. Believe me, I understand about that. You can watch the replay later and catch up on all the things you missed. Plus, you can always go back and relearn because, you know, the first time you watch something, you don’t get all of the details. You need to go back and watch it a few times to get it. Plus, it’s always nice to hang out with Annie any chance you get. So, if you’re a premium member of Clay Share, you guys get a discount. You know about that. Check that out. But, we’re going to go visit Annie this afternoon for those of you who are new to Clay Share or new to Annie and don’t know about her work. and she’s going to tell you all what you’re going to learn in this workshop. Especially if you’ve been on the fence and not sure if you want to take it or not. This is going to tip you right into the yes, please, sign me up land. So, let’s head on out west. It’s a little early for Annie. Not too early, but a bit earlier than here. And we’re going to see how she’s doing and see what she’s going to share with us tomorrow in the workshop. Hey. Hey, Andy. How are you? Hi. Hey. Hi, Jessica. That was the squirrel talking. I love the squirrel. He’s so cute. Welcome home. Thank you. Thank you. I know. It’s a It’s a nothing like jumping right back into the the not frying pan. Right in the fire, I guess. Right into the frolicking with squirrels, right? Exactly. Oh, I love that. I’ll always frolic with squirrels. Uh when I was in Paris, we went to an embroidery shop called uh Annie Boutique, and she didn’t know what chipmunks were. They knew squirrels, but they don’t have chipmunks in France. She didn’t know what I know. I feel so bad for them. So, I mean, you’re They’re so cute. I know. But squirrels, they got So, even in France, they could make a squirrel watering can or planter. Absolutely. So, I mean, all inclusive. Yes. Doesn’t matter where you are, what language you speak, right? Have a good time with these little guys. I don’t know the French word for frolic, but I’ll figure it out. Yeah, we need that. We need that. Okay, so this summer I decided to revisit something that I hadn’t made for maybe between 10 or 15 years. When I moved back to Texas from Colorado in 2010, there were lots of squirrels and I saw them outside of my studio. We would sit on the back p porch and watch them run across the fence and we would play a drinking game. Whenever a squirrel runs across the fence, you drink. So, the first iteration of the squirrel was a decanter, and I called them whiskey squirrels, and I made pine cone shot glasses. And this is actually a shot glass from 15 years ago that I that I have in my liquor cabinet. I love it. Isn’t it cute? So, um, but I don’t drink much anymore. So, I also like to make simple, um, ers like this to use as watering cans. Plus, they look cute sitting in my plants. And so I made a little bitty um planter to go with the project as well. So whether you want to make a whiskey squirrel or watering can and planter, you know, it’s for everybody. And then of course I Maria did that fantastic tree stump workshop with you guys. And so inspired by that, I thought that I would like to make a little tree stump for my squirrel to sit on, but it’s different than Maria’s. This is more like a cake stand, just a little thing with rings. So, and I don’t have a glazed one because someone just bought the one I had last week. So, I whipped up another one really quickly. And these are super easy. But it makes a cute little thing whether you’re going to make it with shot glasses or whether you’re going to make it with planters or honestly both because I guess you can go back and forth between whiskey and water and one squirrel. I don’t think that’ll be a problem. All right. So anyway, and then I taught this this summer in my own online school and then the great thing happened. Whenever we revisit projects, we like to take them another step further. And this little guy came. So we’re going to learn how to make this variation, too. And it is much easier than it looks. So you can see that I did the texture with this variation. So we are going to also learn how to do this the easy way and the hard way. So, I did this one without texture and then scraped the text like the hair on there. And then this is my, you know, super meticulous thing. I just didn’t want people to get discouraged, right? So, you can make them either way. You can make them by cutting out precise angles or you can make them by using the pony roller and rolling the edges and then overlapping things, rolling it all together and then texturing it after. Or you could leave it smooth and do some of your fabulous transfers with it and then it’ll look like it’s wearing pajamas. So, you know, so I’m templates are going to be provided. I also have cookie cutters for those of you. One of my students said that she has a hard time holding the knife because she has arthritis. So, I went ahead and had my templates made into cookie cutters. And I did this for this one with the tail with the cutout. So there’s a limited number of the um this tail and then it’s going to switch over to the full tail because you can make the full tail and then do the cutout. So there’s a limited number of these, but I’m not going to have these ones printed again. And you can see in my online shop if you want to buy the cookie cutters. You don’t have to because templates are going to be provided and explained, but if you want cookie cutters, they are available now. And there’s a limited run. Well, you’ll get both tails. There’s a limited run of two tail sets. And cutters are a great shortcut. Like if you want to make multiples, they save so much time. And also, you talked about how it can be difficult for some folks to use knives and cutting. So, it’s, you know, just a really nice way to make it easier for everyone out there who wants to keep working in pottery when things might be difficult, right? So, that’s why I made those available. I didn’t realize that some people had an issue until I was talking to one of my students and she said, “I really wish you would make your templates into cutters because I can’t hold the knife.” So, anyway, we’ve got that for everybody because this is an all-inclusive squirrel frolicking situation. It’s the perfect season for squirrel frolicking. Are you having a good autumn? Like lots of fall stuff happening out there for you. Yes, the trees are beautiful. Both my dog and I love the cooler weather. I do a three-mile hike with him almost every day. We did it this morning. He’s so happy. He gets in the river. He gets in the river even in the middle of winter. He is just a winter boy. So, and he got to be an 85 pound very long-legged dog. unexit. So that happens, you know, when you get the little ones, sometimes when they’re little, you don’t know quite how big they’re going to end up, right? Well, I adopted a shepherd mix, but he has massive in them. Oh, giant. Surprise. So, uh, a couple questions. Where can folks get the cutters that are new that might not know where you sell them? So, you can go to my website. It’s Earth to Annie and there’s a link. It says squirrel supplies. It’ll take you right there. There’s also a link at the top that just takes you to my general online shop. But yeah, Earth to Annie is where you’ll find me on Instagram, on Facebook. I have a Earth to Annie page. What else? What other socials are we doing these days? Blue Sky, although I don’t post there much. I can’t I can’t do them all. I I think there’s too many. There’s back to I just do We have our own Clay Share, Facebook, and Instagram. That’s it. That’s all I am. I’m not I can’t I can’t do everything and make choice. Yeah. Yeah. But they can. Right. And if somebody’s watching this later and and they have more questions, of course they can reach out to you or to me. Yes. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. We’re always available for questions. Absolutely. And there are no bad questions. And sometimes you have to ask the question and have it explained to you in a slightly different way for it to make sense. So I get that. I get that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The only bad question is the one you don’t ask. Yes. You should always if you if you even have a tiny niggling of an one, you should ask the question. Yes, you should. Yes. Because we can answer. And I know that during the workshop, if you know the answer, do you go back and type it in and then if like it doesn’t get answered, you just, you know, ask it again and it’ll get answered. Always gets answered. Absolutely. Yeah. So, what else? What else? Jess, why don’t you uh show folks some things you’ve done and might be familiar? This is your third workshop with us, correct? Yes. So, you’ve done all handbuilding. Yes. I’m a handbuer. Um, yeah. I didn’t know if you wanted to Yeah. You want to share some of your Do you have some pieces you want to share to show folks what what you got? I know you’re probably like many folks. We just go into the other room. I mean, we can we can go watch this. Here we go. Here we go. Let’s go. Let’s go. I I love a studio tour impro. I got a cat. A space cat. Very nice. This is my spooky fairy tale bathroom. Very very nice. Here’s my new wooden ceiling. Can you see it? I love the wooden ceiling. Yeah. Um and here’s my inventory. I did not clear off my table. My table is full of stuff. But we won’t look at the table. We’ll just go here. So, another workshop, the first workshop that I did was was it called form to function where I how to make we took it like from a vase to a pitcher of handb building. And when I hand build, I never put a form on the inside of things. So, if you take this class, you’ll learn how I make these really big pots by um by just standing the clay up on its edge, which is something I’m going to be doing. I got invited to do a pre and see workshop with the Village Potter’s Guild in Plymouth. Plymouth, which is like 30 minutes outside of Detroit, and we’re going to be doing something similar to that in that workshop. So, in the workshop I did with you, we started with a vase and then I showed everyone how to take it from a vase to a picture and including these compound slabs that and that’s that’s the from form to function. So, if you’re watching this and you’re like, well, I don’t know if I want to make a squirrel piece, but I really like Annie’s textures and I like the way she makes. You can take that Yes. do that workshop and learn how to make those with Annie. Yeah. I can’t remember what the other workshop I did with you is offh hand. What else did we do? Well, do you know the great thing about cllayshare is if you go to cllayshare.com and you search your name. I can find it the exact name of it. Well, and I know that for clayare dishes, right? You did Oh, so you’ve done four things with us. Oh, no. You’ve done twice. Yeah. So, the first time I did one of these. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So the f Okay, I got them all. The first one you did was from form to function and then you did creative covered dishes which was three parts. That was a huge workshop. Yes. I don’t have any of those. Oh, I have a I have a butter dish. We have a bunch of gorgeous photos. Yes, butter dishes. Um yeah, that was Yeah, that’s a big workshop. That was six hours. That’s a lot broken up. So was So was this one. This one was also three sessions. Oh, yes, it is. I see. It’s how it’s organized. Yep. What else did we do? And then I’ve done Clay Share Con a few times. Two times. You’ve done two Clay Share Cons. Um and I have two different your We did that. Yep. Yep. Foot ring pookies. Yeah, we did a lot. Jess, I know. Gosh. Too bad. Too bad we aren’t just, you know, sitting around doing nothing, huh? doing with nothing. Nope. Busy busy artists here. Yep. Busy artists and busy teachers. Tall bowls. We did bowls. Yes, we did calls for I did that for Clay Con this last this last time. It was tall bowls, right? So tobles, the pookies, the from form to functions and the cupboards, dishes and now the really big one sculptures and oh my gosh, I love that. I am in love with that. When you sent the photo of that, I was like, “Oh my goodness gracious.” So I made this as a yarn thing for insertia. Yeah. Ina rather. So, like I put three holes there for like the three balls of yarn and then I put um holes in the tail to put needles in. Oh, yes. And then I split the tail at the top because you know how you have little stitch markers? You can put little stitch markers in there. Anyway, I haven’t tried it out yet. I need to try it out because I might have to make some modifications, but I really like form. I love that shape. Yeah, that’s great. He’s Yeah, there’s something about it. The puffiness is very I love it. Yeah, puffiness is nice, isn’t it? Puffiness and fuzziness. Puffy and f. We get both in one. And puffy and fuzzy. All right. If anybody has any questions, a lot of folks on here have already taken your workshops, already signed up. Um, I want to remind you if you’re a premium member of Clay Share, you get a discount. We cannot post the code here because this is open to the public. And if I post the code here, everybody sees the discount and it’s only for premium members. So, it’s on cllayshare.com if you go to the community. Um, you will see it posted to the very top of the community. Um, or you can go to the section of the community on discount codes and you’ll see it. So, oh yes, and I have my website set with free shipping right now for everybody. So, just choose that bonus. Unfortunately, I can’t free ship to people if you’re outside of the United States. I’m so sorry. But if you’re in the US, you can choose free shipping if you’re getting your some squirrel supplies. They’re squirrel supplies. I love squirrel supplies. You know, someone’s gonna come on there and try to buy like squirrel food or something. They’re not going to know. Looking like search on Google squirrel supplies and your website comes up as a possibility. Oh, now I need to make acorns for my squirrels so they don’t get hungry. You You will have to make them food and nests in our Wait, didn’t I see that you have an acorn plate? I do have an acorn plate. Yeah. Oh, so fit on the acorn plate. Yeah, you can make it big enough. We could totally put some squirrels on acorn plate. We got to do it. We’ll do it. It’ll be a collab. Oh. Oh. Oh, yes. We could make the squirrels and put the acorn plates in the squirrel and they could stack inside them so that it could have like tapas or something with it and that would be the server. Tap a squirrel. Tap a squirrel. Okay. I’m gonna send you a squirrel. So, we’re going to collaborate. We’re gonna have I have to send you some plates. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. I can I can hook you up. Yeah. Squirrels are good. Like this will be so cute on your Thanksgiving table, right? And the size we’re going to make is this. But it’s very easy to scale the things up, right? But you can use this as a nut bowl. This is one that I need to glaze it. Yeah, I think that would be great for storing. You could put your pens or art supplies in there or brushes or things to quickly grab. Crackers could fit. Yeah, we make a cute cracker squirrel for your little cracker squirrel trying. I mean, the holiday fall is here and Thanksgiving is coming. And how nice would that be? You could have that. You could even put vote of candles in it if you wanted to use as a centerpiece or poperri. Put some pine cones in there and stuff. Oh yeah, cinnamon pine cones for sure. That’d be really I can send a free pine cone with every order of tools. Oh, from your yard. You’re going to go get Clean your yard and send everybody out there with a bag of pine cones and be like, “Yep, I’m getting rid of these.” Enjoy. I’ve got to burn. I got to do a pine cone burn. There’s so much to do. Always so much to do. Um, sushi roll play. Ah, yeah. You sushi in your sushi squirrel. Sushi squirrel. How come every word that’s followed by squirrel just sounds cute and fun? I don’t know. Squirrel is a great word. I do love squirrels. Yeah, they’re fun little things. I love to watch them. Growing up in Texas, like I said, we had a lot of squirrels there and we had fruit trees and it was like a war to keep the squirrels from eating the peaches. Yeah. You know, it was always like, “Get out of here, you squirrel.” But I live in Oregon now and the squirrels here are gray with white bellies and they’re not overrunning the place. Like they’re they’re perfect amount of squirrels and they come down and they run around with my chickens. They like your chickens. It’s cute. It’s really cute. Um I think the chickens squirrels steal a little bit of their food when they can. They’re, you know, we have a fair number of squirrels, too, but we also have a fair number of predators, sadly. So, it keeps the squirrels in check. But yeah, any other Let’s see. So, we’re going to do this short and sweet. I’m checking. Okay, we’re keeping it short and sweet because uh to me is 11:19 at night, so it’s almost midnight. I’m uh time for you to wind down and take uh I’m really I’m really having some hard Why we just got back so I am and I I’ve heard I didn’t want to wait on this. I was like, “Well, you know, I could spend the day on the sofa doing nothing or we could do this.” And I would much rather do this with you because Well, it’s always fun to chat with you. No. And this is the only time we hang out honestly is Well, we got to make more time at Insea this year because I only saw you for a second. Last and I have got a plan for this in SEA. I’m going to definitely uh make more time. So, we’ll we’ll have we’ll have we’ll have some time. folks. Any other questions about the workshop coming up? This is tomorrow, Saturday, October 18th. If you don’t have any plans or even if you do, sign up now just so you don’t forget. And come hang out with me and Annie, mostly Annie. I’m going to just be moderating. Um, but you’re going to do it. You’re gonna do it all, Annie. I’m sorry. You’re I got you. I got you. She’s And uh so we’re going to do the handb building the squirrel watering can. You have two versions of squirrels that we’re going to be making. Yep. Uh we’re going to talk about texture. Yep. We’re going to do it the easy way and the meticulous way. We’re going to do it both ways. Two ways with texture. Now we’re not going to glaze in this, but you’re going to talk about glazing quickly or again. Always. Yeah. I make my own glazes. So, it’s just, you know, a dip in a But I can, yes, I can have some ready to glaze if we have time. I have a feeling we’re going to go longer than two hours on you. Two hours to get everything in each day is a a it’s going to be a lot of information to share, but I think talking about glazing is good. Just like a 15 minute discuss what glazes you would like to use on the texture and work best and and things. So, there’ll be a discussion about um that. And those of you who want to know where you can get the templates beforehand for the workshop, they will be on the page for the workshop. So, go to the workshop where the image is of the workshop and you can you also get them from the session video for that workshop, but they’ll be there. So just like regular downloadables on our classes for someone who is new. Uh let’s see. So again get your cutters from earth toanie.com. Although there will be templates. Yes. And oh other things there that are useful like if you don’t have small bats I have some small bats for sale that will come in really handy. And do you have your textures too? And some textures. Texture mats. I have some textures. Annie has great textures. So you can get some textures. And Lenise says she loves listening and following you. And you’re a great instructor and potter. So thanks Lenise. She is. Annie is fabulous. I I can’t even We can’t even tell people how long we’ve been friends anymore. We’re just not allowed to. We’ve reached that that point. We Yeah, it’s been a long time. Yeah, the first time we saw each other in person was Portland and Sika, but we were online friends before that. For a long time before that, but that’s how fabulous the clay community is, though. I mean, you meet people, you follow other artists, and you thing is with clay people is you can see their work, and you can just be like, “Hey, I love that.” And then they say, “Thanks.” And then you say, “I also like to use a lot of texture.” And you know, then you start talking about your textures and then you start talking about your techniques and then they’ll know an artist that you know, an artist or they went to a school where you went to school or did a residency and the next thing you know your friends and it’s just a great community. Everybody is really supportive and encouraging. It’s a good place. Clay people are the best people, I like to say. Absolutely. And Zika is just hug after hug after hug. Oh my gosh. I know. It sure is. Um, so there was a request if you could put the measurements uh not only in US but in metric for folks outside of the US for what? For uh measurements for the templates. Well, the templates are going to be printable. So you print them and it doesn’t Yeah, it doesn’t matter if they’re slightly bigger or slightly smaller. If you print them up, they will all work together. Okay. So the scale is relevant to your own what you’re doing all you’re working on. Yeah. Right. And you can enlarge them or shrimp them down to make the squirrel. Exactly. They don’t h It’s not like they have to be the exact same. No two squirrels need to be the same size. Right. But the templates are all relative to each other. So Okay, perfect. Perfect. So, actually, the measurements uh don’t matter, right? The measurements don’t matter. And of course, I’m going to be using the standard quarter inch slab. And I don’t know what that is in millimeters, but we can probably conver. We can get a conversion. We can get a conversion for a quarter inch. Um, so just a reminder to folks that if you can’t make it at the time of the class, you will have access to it afterwards. It will be recorded and the replays are forever. So you can I love anything that lasts forever cuz what does honestly? As long as it doesn’t get care. That’s right. All right. So, we are going to wrap it up and let Annie go. Also, me so I can get my beauty sleep so I can be ready. I know. I know. I can’t go to bed too early or tomorrow. I’ll wake up at 3:00 a.m. like I did today and it’s like 3:00 in the morning and I’m like, “Let’s go. Let’s go.” And then I’m like, “Oh, this is not working.” Yeah. So, folks, then you ask questions. If not, we’re going to see you tomorrow. If you have any questions that occur to you in class, you can just like reach out to me on Earth to Annie on Instagram because I’ll be awake a few hours longer than Jess today. That’s true. You know because you’re you’re Yeah. You’re three hours later that you’re living you’re you’re living the three hours I don’t have. You’re uh Yeah. So I got the three hours plus I haven’t been traveling so I I’ll be awake. So, if you have any like last minute questions, just reach out to me on my Instagram page or my Facebook Earth to Annie page. Well, I just want to tell everybody if they’re not following you yet on Instagram, they should. It’s Earth to Annie on Instagram. It’s pretty easy. Same as her website. So, go follow her and you can check out her website and then come back and join us tomorrow. All right, I think we’re going to wrap it up. Annie, thank you so much. Oh, we got we got an answer though. 1/4 in equals 6.35 mm. Thank you. I will have that now. I won’t either, but thank you. I will I know I’m writing in my book right now for tomorrow. 6.35 mm equals 1/4 inch. It’s really Yeah, guide to get started for a slab because if your slab is slightly thicker, if you’re new, you want to do a slightly thicker slab because the clay is a little bit more supportive or if you want a lighter squirrel, you can make it smaller. The templates will work with, you know, a range of thicknesses of slabs. Absolutely. All right, everybody. Thank you, Annie, so much for doing this little preview with us. Always a pleasure to see you and I’ll see you tomorrow and I will be a little more brighteyed and bushy tailed just like your squirrels. Awesome. All right. Thanks for being here tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay. Bye, Jess. Thank you. Bye. All right, everybody. Fun preview with Annie. Come join our workshop with Annie tomorrow. You got nothing to lose and four hours of fun ahead of you. And if you need a little more preview than just this and you’re not a Clay Share member yet, guess what? You can go to Clay Share Con from the last two years and you can watch Annie segments for free. So you don’t have to pay for any of Clay Share Con. So you can get a little little taste of what’s in store for you. In fact, you can get a little taste of all of Clay Share there because this is going to be our seventh year doing Clay Share Con coming up next February. And every year it gets bigger and better and all of that is always available for everyone for free. And if you like that and you want more, go to cllayshare.com, sign up to become a premium member. We have thousands of more videos on everything pottery. We also have dozens more workshops from many, many artists like Annie in all different areas of pottery. So, whatever you want to learn, we’ve got it. And if we don’t have it yet, just let me know and I’ll find somebody or I’ll do it and teach you how. So, tomorrow, sign up for the workshop. You do that now. If you’re a premium member, you get a discount. So, make sure you use your discount. Another reason to join is because you get discounts on the workshops along with discounts on some other products and great sponsor offers. So, thank you everybody for joining me. Yes, I’m very jet-lagged. I am going to go get some rest and I will be back tomorrow. Remember that’s 100 p.m. Eastern, which makes that do our math. What? 10 a.m. Pacific. Yeah, I can still do the math. I will see you all then. Thank you for being here. And avoa everyone.