Tuesday 26 May 2009

More bowls!!

Here we are with my daughter and son-in-law at the end of our walking holiday, just to show we returned in one piece. Only just though I had a fairly spectacular fall and went backwards and ended up wedged in a crevice. Mark had to come and pull me out. I don't know which mountain is behind us but it is one of the ones we walked.
The countryside was very beautiful and the weather was most wonderful.
A shop in Abergavenny,this painting wrapped it's self around the building.
This cockerel was suspended in the local market at Abergavenny. There were several of them but I could only get this one in the picture.

These are the latest bowls out of the kiln. Yes- even more bowls. These are ready for Ceramics South East at Aylesford at the end of June. The jugs are not particularly successful as I've put the glaze on fairly thinly. However they have given me ideas that I want to explore so it's all progress. Every time I open the kiln it motivates me to get on with making more pots. I have got a head full of pots I want to make. I don't think I will get too much done this week as it's half term so I need to get my sketch book out and get all the ideas on paper.
As I type this I can hear Ry Cooder playing somewhere in the background and life is very pleasant.

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Stoneware?

Oh no can they really be stoneware? These are jugs I made to demonstrate to one of my students so I have used the same clay and glaze that he was using. At first I wondered what I could do with them-but a friend had a birthday so I baught a couple of bunches of flowers and put them in the larger one. Birthday presentsorted! When the adult education centre closed about three years ago I inherited these glazes.
Let me introduce you to my daughter and my eldest son. He's all ready to go to his 'leavers' bash'. I now have two boys at home on 'study leave' as they are doing A levels and GCSEs.

Friday 8 May 2009

This week....

This week has been a very short week as it was a bank holiday on Monday and I was teaching in a local school on Wednesday. The teaching was great fun as the children really enjoy a whole day of pottery. The little figure above was a sort of clay doodle. I should not have been messing about as I've got far too much work to do but sometimes it's so nice to play with the clay.
Wet , newly slipped bowls. I threw 5 of these. They are all over 12 inches in diameter. I've had a commission for a bowl for a wedding so while I was throwing I thought I may as well do a few.
Waiting for glaze.
These jugs are a shape I've come up with for my students to try as I think they are probably an easy shape for them to aim for with a wide bottom and not too much curve, the weight is distributed evenly. But I quite like the simplicity of them so I may try to develop them. There are so many ideas I want to work on at the moment and there are so many enjoyable things to do in life it's difficult to fit it all in and to prioritize!! Never mind there is always tomorrow.