Finding direction

Here are a few of the pots out of the kiln this morning. I thought I should post some thing in case you thought I had taken a holiday! The first of the bowls with a horse theme came out. I like the shape and the writing around the outside but now I need to do my homework on the images I use. It takes me a while to work out what images to use even if they are very simple. I've thrown 8 or 9 bowls the same shape and some jugs and my drawing needs to stay ahead of the throwing really perhaps I will have some drawing time over the week-end.

I am now downing my paint brush and stepping away from this exercise! I may reconsider if I find any different feathers. At first I could hardly find one or two feathers but all that changed when I came across a dead pheasant that had been hit on the road. I now have plenty of pheasant feathers but very little else. If you remember I had set myself the task of recording all the feathers I found.

Sgraffito exhibition

I had a job to work out how to get those last photos on. It's my daughter's birthday today so the whole family have been here for dinner-great fun butI had to abandon blogging to cook dinner!
If I come across anything sgraffito or slipware related I get quite excited. Today I found a link to an exhibition dedicated to slipware. It's like a bit of majic.
Here is a link to the exhibition called Sgraffito 3D


Hope you enjoy!! Also click on collection and you will find a whole catalogue of all the pots.

Bowls with horses

Slow week

I have had a very slow week. Doing things for the family like trips to the dentist and lifts to and from school have used quite a slice of time. I have loads of pots under polythene but very little finished.
The bowl above is a regular pouring/mixing bowl I make. I want to try and use this shape and adapt it to take illustrations. I like the way the shape encloses space whereas my other bowls are very open. Also I thought it would be interesting to see the lettering standing vertically and going around the pot.


Here are some I've experimented with this week. I am not quite there with the decoration yet. I would like to use horses as a decorative motif and I am sure I've seen some sgraffito bowls somewhere with horses but I cann't remember where! I could really do with designated blocks of time to develop my drawing but with four children I have to spread my time out sometimes. Good job there is a whole new fresh week next week to explore all these ideas.

School

Didn't get any potting done today as I was teaching at a local school. They want to use clay more with their children and so my brief was to 'show the teachers how to make animals using clay'. We had great fun playing with clay for the day and they even pay me. Wonderful. I had 20 teachers to work with -imagine what a good time their students are going to have when they are presented with clay for the first time.


Tuesday I had a bit of a clear up. How's this for a neat tidy cupboard? When I open this cupboard up it has a wonderful smell-I think it's probably because I associate the smell with making pots!!

Poem

Years ago a friend gave me this poem she cut out of the paper. It's the only one I've seen about a kiln. Hopefully if you click on it you can read it!
It was all warm and cosy in the studio today. Mostly adding handles and getting stuff slipped. Also I am still kneading and wedging clay. Have done it every day this week and my shoulders are aching. Spare a thought for me all you folks with pug mills.

Mugs

I need to make mugs this week so I am thinking about how I will decorate them. The pictures show some mugs that I made some years ago that we use at home. I was never sure if I liked them and they took quite a long time to make by the time I had applied all those strips of clay. I am not going to pursue that idea but do some with sgraffito decoration. I threw a few on Tuesday to think about shapes and today I threw several more.
It's very cold here this week, fortunately all the pots have been O.K. The forecast tonight is for heavy frost so I have just come in from the studio as I've put a biscuit firing on. That will protect from frost and make the studio warm tomorrow. I'm surprised I could move today I had so many layers of clothes on!

New year

These are small lidded pots from the last firing. I've been packing fired work away to create as much room as possible in the studio.
I started back in the studio yesterday and found that I still had a few things under polythene. I decided I would finish these domes for butter dishes as their bases are all ready in the kiln! There were also a few other things to finish so I haven't yet done any throwing. I am looking forward to throwing tomorrow. I finished a bit early today-about 4 o'clock so I thought it was a bit late in the day to start throwing so I embarked on a few studio chores. Firstly, I slopped out a pile of reclaimed clay onto the plaster slab. I then decide to investigate the cly trap-after all I haven't looked at it for ages. UGhhh, it was very smelly and nearly full. Not too sure what to do with this clay-should I reclaim it, if my nostrils can come with the stench? I don't think I've ever got so messy good job there was nobody about to photograph me.