A Shining Angel and other Seasonal Pots

I'm taking my finished work along to The MGill Duncan Gallery for their Winter Exhibition which opens on Saturday. Pretty much everything I made for it came out of the kiln this week. I was a little nervous unpacking as there was a lot of new shapes and colours, and I was rather unsure how they would turn out. I was mostly pretty happy with the firing.

The Angel shines out of her dish pretty much as I had hoped she might.

The guinea fowl was bold and the background not too dull.

I was pleased with the colours on this owl too.

.....And the penguins all seem quite happy. The King and Queen party penguins are finished,

and the Party trio behaved themselves too.

There were quite a few of the tiny penguins too. This is a Happy Glutton

And here are some revellers. Come along to McGill Duncan and meet them and their friends if you can.

The Lonely Glutton and other Penguins

It's that penguin time of year again. I have been making candle holders for the Winter Exhibition at The McGill Duncan Gallery. These penguins are thrown as hollows and therefore do interesting things when I bend them. Usually this makes them even fatter, an aspect which goes well with a Christmas feasting theme.  The party hats on this pair inadvertently turned them into a Henry Moore-ish King and Queen, so I just went along with that. (These photos are of them 'in progress' with only half the slip on - their bench will eventually also be white).

I enjoyed myself giving them titles. This one is The Lonely Glutton. 

These three sit on a thrown doughnut. The bending process informs their characters, the chest on the one on the left turns her into, well, a HER, and quite a comfortable middle aged kindly kind of Her at that I should imagine.

I'm not sure whether these two are chums are enjoying a good mug of ale or whether I should call them Amorous Wassailers. 

Glazed and not looking forward to the heat of the kiln.

It was glazing all week. The dishes are very time consuming to decorate, I paint black wax lines then trail the coloured glaze, wax out and dip them in a transparent gloss. I thought that I would get them finished last night but I forgot how much glaze is needed just to do a good dip. Then I forgot how much faff is involved in mixing up a big batch of glaze, and how much mess there is to clear up at he end of it all!

The Monster Dishes from the last post have had to be put on hold. Oh yes, Christine got her calculations wrong again, (over ambitious as usual), and they are just a TINY bit too long for the kiln. I fear that I will have to use the old slanted kiln shelf solution, but it is ridiculous just how much of an angle you need just to accomodate that tiny miscalculation of HALF a centimetre!

We have had a treat. At last a squirrel has found our feeder. Tempted by the batch of wild hazelnuts we collected. I have never thought before about how squirrels use their tails as umbrellas.

But despite that the little fellow decided that actually, perhaps just getting right inside the box was the best way to keep dry.

Too fat now to get out again?