'Alice' gone to my head

The queen of tarts she made some .......
....hearts all on a summers day ................
the knaves of hearts he stole those tarts ..and took them quite away..

Doesn't sound quite right!

Alice in Wonderland

I am just coming to the end of my time working on the theme of 'Alice'. I am quite sad to leave the theme as I have enjoyed working with the idea. Normally I try to keep ahead with the ideas I am exploring in my sketch books. Above is a drawing that I have never used and my head and sketch book are full of ideas that I want to explore. I am never in the position of looking at a pot and wondering what I am going to do with it in terms of decoration.
With 'Alice' I have been in a different position where I am almost behind with the drawings. I have been drawing my 13 year old son to get some ideas for how Alice might look in different situations. (I decided that drawing the 16 or 19 year old would be no good or Alice would look like a hairy gorilla!) Good job they never read the blog!!
I have also refered to the original drawings by John Tenniel as they are images I remember from my childhood.

After working on the drawings I have made templates. I didn't use all of them but they are very useful as you cann't correct mistakes with sgraffito. I use them to place the images on the pots.
Here is a glimpse of a few more finished bowls.

We went to see the film 'Alice in Wonderland' withJonny Depp last Sunday and now I am looking for Alice everywhere. We saw the film in 3D. I haven't been to the cinema for years and it gave me motion sickness- the screen was massive. When we got home I was glad to go for a walk around the lake to clear my head. But I couldn't help thinking that there might be a hole some- where near these tree rooots that Alice might just fall down.
Next week it will be back to making colanders and jugs.

Kiln Opening

Here are a few of the pots out of today's kiln opening. One of the bowls with Alice in Wonderland. I am really enjoying pursuing this theme and would like to do far more drawings around the story. It is such a wild and slightly sinister book.
I am not so happy with the bowl below. I think it is too brightly coloured and prefer the one underneath. So I won't continue with all the colours but stick to a more limited range of colours.
Had to get the kiln straight back on with a biscuit firing.

Present

Mark brought me a present home on Friday.(A very rare and unusual thing for him to do).It's such an odd and funny present as the bee sings a little fan wizzes away at the front. What could I say to such a gift- clearly every menopausal woman should have one!

I'm reading....

I've borrowed this book from the local library. The library is very small and only has restricted opening hours added to which they have no pottery books. However, they will get you any book you want! A wonderful service. This book is quite a hefty fella and has page after page of pictures of pots. It is just made to thrill and excite people like me. (The rest of my family just roll their eyes).
I'm particularly interested in the sgraffito ware but also it's informative to look at the shapes of pots. The jugs in particular. I think the next place on my growing list of places to visit must be the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. I've never been there but that is where all these pots are resident.