cupola gallery

It is my friend Mari's opening night of her solo exhibition at Cupola Gallery in Sheffield.
Mari only ever works in white so it's very nice to see some colours in her work.

It's the last day of my open studios today, and I'm putting all the pots in the back of the car ready to do a craft market in Hereford tomorrow. It's 9am until 5pm, and should be busy. I'm hoping for some early Christmas shoppers!

open studios

Open studios has come around again and as part of H-art I have opened my doors to anyone that wants to come and see how I make my work. There is also lots of work for sale including 2nds, and examples of all the work my students have done. All the brio traintrack was moved out of the living room and it is now my gallery(for one week only)

All the pots are in little families around the place.
I have met some very nice people this week but also managed to make lots of pots as I have been demonstrating to all my visitors. One lady documented her trip to put on her blog, so you can see me making a vase.

symbol

This pattern is called symbol. The vase has been painted in underglaze and then scratched into with a clear glaze on top. The green and pink one is a screen print.

tile workshop

A few weeks ago I did a tile workshop with some nursery children. I had rolled out a large slab for each of them, and they explored patterns and textures in the clay. I cut out an interesting section with my tile cutter and then they used cutters on the remaining clay which we then stuck onto the tile. After firing I painted them with one coat of brush on glaze. I learnt a lot from working with the children, and the first thing was that I didn't leave any room for them to just squelch clay.

lime and turquoise

Here are some close ups of a couple of the lime green vases I have been doing recently. I have to call all my vases names to identify them to myself, and galleries. I have to name them the first thing that comes into my head or I can spend far too long thinking about it. The top one is 'Eyes' and the bottom one is 'Atom'

Party

There was a third birthday party in this house last week! I had a lot of fun making cakes. One of the mummies said what camp puddings! And I took that as a compliment!
I made the rabbit jelly in a glass mould and had to slightly melt it in hot water and then turn out onto a plate. It was all very stressful, and on my second attempt managed to turned out a skinned rabbit with no features. Even Etienne didn't recognise it, but I put him in a strawberry patch and I think he is happy.

Eiffel Tower

While I make and paint my vases, I look at my little Eiffel Tower which i love and I think it looks lonely and it needs some bigger Eiffel Tower friends. Why I waste time thinking about groups of Eiffel Towers I don't know.