Thursday 31 March 2011

Today I have been mostly...

Many years ago I was fortunate to pick this book up cheaply. It's full of wonderful illustrations of a diverse selection of pottery. One of the pictures is of a pilgrim flask by Minton. I have searched the Internet extensively but can't find a picture of the same ones. Anyway, I decided that one day I would make my own as it looked like it was creating a good surface for illustrative decoration.
This week I decide to just experiment with making one.
I've put some photos of some pilgrim flasks below. One by Bernard Leach and I think that the others are by Minton.
The one I made has a number of 'parts' it went together quite easily. I would like to play with the idea some more when I can clear some time to explore the idea.





Friday 18 March 2011

bowls



These three bowls are ones I photographed at the British Museum recently. I am fascinated by the way script is incorporated using those scrolls.
The bowl above is what I've been working on today. I was supposed to be illustrating the Ancient Mariner but I don't know what came over me I just remembered this song from my childhood and it seemed quite cheerful and I just went in this direction! At 6:30 I had to stop and cook dinner so I haven't painted on the oxides and underglaze colours yet. All the green colour is just food colouring. I've been drawing ships all week and they don't seem to fit onto the bowls all that well- too many straight lines maybe. I'm going to try them on some larger jugs to see how they look on a more three dimensional vertical shape.