Over the Easter holidays we had a brilliant holiday on Islay and Jura which included lots of beach combing. One of my finds was a large flat scallop shell which I have had fun pressing into slabs of clay and then moulding the 'shells' to create some bowls.
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| Small shell bowl - h~8cm |
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| Shell bowl with glass - d~25cm |
Not surprisingly, I found a lot of broken shells which I like because the internal spiral structure of the shell is exposed creating very interesting shapes to draw...
...and then use as inspiration for clay
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| Broken shell form - h~12cm, l~18cm |
One shell I would love to have is a nautilus (must put this on my wish list for birthday or Christmas), the form was the inspiration for this piece.
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| Nautilus form (burnished & smoked) - h~21cm, w~18cm |
Another piece of recent burnished and smoked work, this time inspired by the Maori fishhook design.
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| Hei Matau - h~24cm, w~16cm |
My little heart bowls are a great way of experimenting with different surface techniques; this trio had wax resist painted on when leatherhard and were then painted with slip. After bisque firing they were dipped in vellum off-white glaze and then fired to stoneware. Must have been successful since they have all sold.
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| little heart bowls |
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| Salt pig - h~9cm |
I used the same technique to finish this experiment at making a 'salt pig', instead of slip cobalt oxide was used, giving a stronger blue.
For this one I used copper oxide to give the green colour.
Finally, a salt pig based on a shell form.
