New clay...

...not exactly new as I bought myself a bag each of grogged pink and heavily grogged black clays from Bluematchbox with my winnings from 'Best in Show' at our West Forest Potters annual exhibition in May 2014. A year later I started to experiment with both of these clays.

I began with small 'pinch pot' bowls to try out slips and glazes and to get used to handling much rougher clays. Due to the strong colour of the clay, I soon found that glazes worked best over several coats of white slip, as in these small bowls using the pink clay

And these in the black clay

Time then to move on to making some planters, my intended prime use for these new clays.

small black planter - d~15cm

I formed the hemisphere by moulding the slab of clay over a mould then gave more texture to the surface by pressing in a piece of bark.

large black planter - d~25cm, h~20cm

This planter was made using flattened coils built up from a slab inside a large cicular mould, a new technique for me. On this planter I smoothed the joins of the flattened coils both inside and out, then scraped the outside to bring out the texture of the clay.

large pink planter - d~25cm, h~20cm

Once again I used flattened coils but did not smooth the outside, instead used a square edged tool to accentuate the steps.

 I then decided to experiment with a combination of pink and black clays. I had thought that cracks at the joins might appear due to different contraction of the two clays, but all joins have remained intact at both bisque and stoneware firings.

pink and black bowl - d~18cm

black and pink bowl - d~16cm

Whilst playing with my 'new' clays, the new shoots, koru, of my ferns were growing rapidly in the garden, time to make use of them. I decided to make some cylinder vases, pressing the koru into the clay before forming the cylinders. I also made a feature of the joins by making an outward curl of slab at the join. The koru impressions were highlighted with copper oxide and marble green glaze was used inside the vases and on the outside of the curls.

Ready to exhibit

Over the past few weeks I have been busy getting ready for West Forest Potters annual exhibition held over the May bank holiday weekend as part of the Henley Arts Trail.

This year, not only have I needed to plan and prepare my own exhibit, but as Chairman of West Forest Potters I have been co-ordinating the whole event. This has taken more time than I had anticipated, but perhaps this is because it is the first time I have been co-ordinating this event, hopefully next year will be easier. Anyway, fingers crossed that it all runs smoothly and that we have lots of visitors and sales.

I had thought that I would struggle to have enough work to exhibit this year, largely due to puppy distractions! However, when I came to collect everything together I was relieved to find that I have more than enough, so will be able to re-stock if I am successful with any sales. My intial display will look something like this...

The only really 'fresh from the kiln' piece of work in my display is this weird abstract piece on a beautiful piece of yew that Meir gave me about 3 years ago.

smoked abstract on yew - height~30cm

I have also taken the opportunity to try to improve on a couple of pieces of work which I had not been entirely satisfied with.

The first was one of my eternity pieces (Rauiri in Maori)

It started life having green slip applied before burnishing. For some reason I fired this to stoneware temperature which did give the piece the shine without the need for wax polishing, but reduced the porosity for smoking which was my next step.

Needless to say, smoking was not successful!
Back into the kiln to burn off this mess.

This all took place back in December 2012, since then the work has sat on one of my shelves feeling a little sorry for itself.



I finally got around to trying to glaze the piece. I applied vellum off white then added 'splodges' of marble green. The piece came out of the kiln looking like a green and cream dalmation! (sorry no photo) More marble green glaze and firing no.5 has produced the piece below, which I now feel happy with (at last!).

Eternity - height ~25cm

The second piece which I have re-worked had been unsuccessfully smoked, fired to clean, then smoked again with a better result. I then mounted the piece on some yew which I shaped and polished.

smoked oval on yew - height~18cm

Do come to the exhibition if you can, we have 20 members showing their lovely work, there is also a great pub next to Neville Hall, Waltham St Lawrence. We are open from 10am to 5pm on Sat 2nd, Sun 3rd and Mon 4th May and will be offering tea, coffee and yummy home made cakes!

Busy doing other things...

Another 4 months have flown by since my last post, I really must be old as time is whizzing by quicker than ever! Thankfully my lack of ceramic production has been due to being busy doing other things, and not because of any injury.
I had a successful month in the More Arts Gallery in November last year. I was unable to remain there in December since I was unavailable to fulfil the rota requirements due to a big family holiday in New Zealand. Four weeks were spent with husband, daughter and son enjoying the summer sun and exploring the beautiful scenery that the North Island has to offer; previous trips had largely been spent on the South Island. The main reason for the trip was to burst with pride as Katy graduated with her PhD at Victoria University, Wellington! Having travelled all that way we just had to spend more time with the kids and enjoying NZ.

Returned to the cold and dark of a British winter, but cheered myself up by starting the search for a new puppy (we had delayed doing this for 1 1/2 years because of the NZ trip) and playing on my sewing machine.
First I made some cushions using kiwi fabrics bought on our trip.

Then  made a quilt for my Mum.

It was tempting to keep sewing but the lure of the dirty stuff prevailed and I made some more burnished and smoked work.
Firstly I made some vases and hearts

Pleased with the finish of both the blue vases

The fern resist has worked really well on this vase

 

Vase or bowl? Not really sure

 

Hard to control the amount of smoking on the hearts in the incinerator

I then started to play with the clay using some of my many beachcombing finds as starting points and some inspiration from the work of Antonia Salmon. I have had fun experimenting and produced some different shapes which I hope will lead on to further developments.

small spiral, burnished and smoked

shell form

broken shells

I did say that we started the search for a puppy on our return from New Zealand. It didn't take too long to find just what I was looking for, a cross golden retriever with border collie. We collected her on Valentine's Day and she has definitely broken our hearts.

Her name is Cuillin after the Black Cuillin of Skye, a happy climbing ground for us in our youth

Needless to say, not a lot of potting has happened since she arrived!!

Autumn leaves

I thoroughly enjoy the meetings held by West Forest Potters because each month we invite a well known potter to come and demonstrate and talk about their work. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain further inspiration and possibly learn new skills to include in our own work.

In Sept 2013, I was enthralled by the work of Liz Teall who uses real leaves as a resist for slip decoration of her work. Over the past few weeks I have finally got around to experimenting with this technique. After a fair amount of trial and error I am starting to produce some pieces which I am fairly happy with. My first successful pieces were a pair of 'double bowls' which I made as new bowls for the cats, they appear to be delighted with them!!

Cat bowls

 I like using my small heart bowls to experiment with different decorative techniques, as well as using leaves from the garden, I have also cut paper spirals (got to have my koru in somewhere).

Heart bowls

Koru and fern leaf heart bowl

 I have also used this technique to decorate a 'salt pig'

I am sufficiently happy with my results so far that I plan to continue to develop this technique, but may have to wait until next year when I have more leaves in the garden.

More Arts Gallery

Having got myself back into production, I was excited to receive an email recently inviting me to exhibit (and hopefully sell) my work in the More Arts Gallery in Wokingham. A group of local artists, under the More Arts organisation in Wokingham are currently using an empty shop in the town centre to exhibit and sell their work in their 'Here Now' exhibition. The shop is open Fridays and Saturdays from 10.00am to 5.00pm with the artists on a rota to steward the exhibition.
Fortunately I had enough work to display both in Wokingham and at Riseley Village Tearooms.
I set up my display on Friday 31st October, ready for the shop opening on 1st November.

My work will be on sale for all of November, fingers crossed for some business!

Back in production

Over 4 months have passed since my last post; since then I have had a cortisone injection in my wrist and physiotherapy, this has removed the pain and enabled me to get back to 'playing with wet dirt (clay)'. I am a happy potter again.

My kiln had been out of action for so long that I had to brush away the cobwebs before using it again in September! Since then I have been busy making items which I hope to sell in the build up to Christmas at Riseley Village Tea Rooms as well as doing a few experiments with slip and firing glazes at a higher temperature.

Here are some photos of some of my recent work:-

Shallow heart bowl (cobalt oxide under vellum off-white glaze)

Shallow triangle bowl (copper oxide under vellum off-white glaze)

Triple bowl

Pots with new style of handle

Four heart bowl

Bowls (cobalt oxide under copper red glaze)

Heart bowls using new pink clay

Birds - seem to have rectified recent cracking.

Bowls with slip experimentation - the cats are pleased with them!

Frustration

I am currently not meant to be 'playing with clay' due to prescribed 'rest' for de quervain's tenosynovitis in my right thumb, caused by over-enthusiastic use of secateurs back in March. I am finding it hard to not use my right hand and very frustrating not to be making things; so thought I would use some of my free time to update my blog with work that I managed to make before the pain really kicked in.

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.

Small shell bowl - h~8cm

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

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.

Nautilus form (burnished & smoked) - h~21cm, w~18cm

This piece won 'best in show' at West Forest Potters Annual Exhibition as part of the Henley Arts Trail and was sold at the show.

Another piece of recent burnished and smoked work, this time inspired by the Maori fishhook design.

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.

little heart bowls

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.