waterlily

I am doing some designs with waterlillies in them. My current floral vases are of a Japanese Anenome and a Clematis, but i'm going to leave them for a while. I find it good to choose a flower and spend a while drawing it on paper so that I get a bit more familiar with it before going into any designs on pots.

making a vase

Here's a slideshow of me making a vase.
I use Earthstone Original clay and do all my rolling out by hand. When the clay has gone leather hard, I use newspaper templates to cut out the shape of the vase . I scratch and score the edges of the clay, curve the pieces around a rolling pin to shape them, and then stick them together with a mixture of water and clay.
I tidy up the top and edges, and put a base on.

2008 workshops

I have just had a little tidy up of the studio and thought I'd take this picture for my website as I have just put some dates for workshops up. There are two saturday courses in May and June and a weekend one in July.

blue and green prints

My screen arrived, it is very exciting i burnt some ovals onto it as you can see on the top picture, and also some tiny spots on the bottom picture so I can print ovals and spots to my hearts content. I have tried printing onto my clay with slips....fairly unsucessfully so far, but I'm sure it's just practice.
Through Print and Pattern I have found a really nice blog about screenprinting called Make It
There is lots of useful information and links to other silk screeny type things

wrapping paper?

I was pleased with how these designs came out. They looked like they could be wrapping paper. Although the designs are improving, the technique is not, it's still all blobby!
My screen has arrived though, and I have been experimenting with coloured slips onto leather hard clay.

paper pots

The screen printing looks much improved in 3D. I've ordered my own screen now so hopefully I can try some of these effects out on clay with slips and glazes. I will have to do it onto flat sheets of wet clay, so have no idea how I will make them into a vase shape without ruining the decoration.

teapots

I was teaching 15yr olds some slab building techniques last week. This is what the group of 4 produced in a day and a half. This included looking at contemporary teapots, design time and carving their own plaster stamps. When I was searching around for images I found that Ceramics Monthly is online including some articles from the latest issue.