Christmas break

I've stopped work in the pottery earlier than I had intended to as the boys are home from school. Their school closed early because of the snow.
However, I took a day off from domestic chores to have a day in London. There is still thick snow here and impacted ice so I wore walking boots and other suitable clothing but I must have looked a bit out of place in the V and A as the snow had cleared in London.
Rather than try to pack as much as possible into my visit which is my usual strategy I decided to spend my time in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries. I'm looking for the imagery they used apart from the obvious grand religious themes.
I like the look of these lions so they maybe putting in an appearance on next years pots. I wish I had the time to invest in making a ceramic aquamanile like the ones below.


Today Barnaby and Mark came for a walk with me. It's still very white and the snow crunched beneath our feet. We did a circular walk of about 7 miles. I'm not a great romantic so I must admit one of the best parts of the trip was the pub lunch at the pub below. It works out quite well as it's about half way round the walk!
It's pleasant to enjoy family time but I am ready to get back to work now- well perhaps I can fit in another trip to the V and A after all I never ventured into the ceramics galleries.

In the studio today

I've had this old cupboard for years. Until now it's always held the 'potions' like oxides, lustre and essences. But I decided to repaint it and put a display into it. Some of the work I want to revisit and try to take further. I'm having a bit of a clean up so that I can start working on the next batch of pots.



Here are some bowls that I've tried some different approaches on. I'm not too sure that I like the background. I've grown so used to the cream slip that the blue doesn't really work for me. I may try using the bird drawings again on a cream background. I had also thought of using some gold lustre on them but that may be just adding too much to the cost of producing them.