The Leopard Changed her Spots

What a huge relief - the Leopard not only survived but came out well. It was all a bit last minute, out of the kiln on Tuesday and off to the CatStrand Community Arts Centre on Wednesday. We took it up there in a dreadful downpour, driving, with windscreen wipers on fast, past a flooded Loch Ken, to find the CatStrand in a bit of a panic. The banking wall into which it is built was bulging and water was spurting out. If it burst water would have rushed through the building. So there were Rodger and I, standing on top of a ladder trying to hang the Leopard while phones rang, builders, and a fireman squeezed by and general bedlam surrounded us.

The 'Farewell' to Cathy Agnew, who founded the Centre, and to whose name is inscribed on the piece as 'Founder Patron', took place successfully on Saturday evening so I gather the possible flood was averted.

Other pieces from the firing which I was pleased with were this dish with Night Herons. BBC Nature programmes have a lot to answer for. I recall last year a wonderful image of Night herons on a beach as baby turtle hatched and tried to make it safely past their beaks and down to the sea. Needless to say the herons had a feast.

 The first fewswallows have been spotted this week. They often nest in the shed, flying in and out depositing their droppings on our washing line. I am pleased with the movement in this dish.

Today I have been battling with a commemorative plate for a wedding. I really try not to take on too many of these. they invariably take ages and this one is no exception. The brief was 'horses and a little black dog'. Once upon a time I would go out with my sketch book, or off to Dalbeattie library and hunt through books for images to help with these designs. I would love to say that I had gone off for the day with my sketch book but alas no. The internet has made life so much simpler.

Even so it took all morning to research and refine the images. I wanted to have the horses galloping round with the dog in the middle. It would be all too easy to end up with a stodgy static design.

So half way there - a few more colour details to add tomorrow, then another fast dry and quick fire, short deadline affair. I don't like rushing plates.....

Leopard spots

I have fairly been making up for lost time in January and February. I had a batch of finished work out just in time for Easter and right now seem to have more work underway than I can handle. There are enough bisc fired pots for at least three glaze firings, with a further batch of throwing slipped and stashed away waiting patiently in the damp cupboards. Hopefully I will manage to get back to these on Monday.

This leopard dish is for a commission. After it had been bisc fired I brushed the outlines with wax and oxide and filled in with glaze using a slip trailer.  The spots seemed to go on for ages. I kept thinking of the Rudyard Kipling story 'How the Leopard got its' spots'. Certainly not this way. 

I was a bit unsure of my glaze colours, this was going to be a new combination, so I did some overnight tests in the tiny test kiln to reassure myself. The test tiles came out fine but it I know that it will look  very different on a large scale. 

I had two days of wax and oxide painting, and I still have half of the dishes to fill with glaze. After that I wax over the glazed areas and dip the whole dish in transparent glaze.  What a palaver of a method - I must be mad. But it seems to work and give me a result that I like and am in reasonable control of. Well - I hope so anyway.

Today was a marathon of mixing, dipping, pouring, wiping and eventually packing. That's it - the kiln is on tonight. I will know how things turn out on Tuesday.

 I am dying to experiment with our new extruder but I am having to be patient. Soon I should have enough essential stock made and commissions completed to be able to get started with it.

Departures and Arrivals

It has been a very long time since I wrote anything for this blog.  It took ages to pick up and catch up after the ill health shenanigans.  I think this year will see me feeling a couple of months behind schedule for some time to come. 

 We have said a couple of goodbyes. Sadly to our white doves who have lived here for over 20 years.  Although countless tests were sent off during  Rodger’s extended hospital stay, the reason for his illness was never resolved but a question mark hung over the strange viruses that the birds could carry. After three years of denial he has conceded that they really should go.

It’s not as easy to find a bird a new home as it sounds. They keep coming back, and we keep returning them....

 Could she have brought in some nasty bug for Rodger to pick up? The consultant did say - The cats or the wife Rodger? Thankfully it was in jest - she stays!

Then it was ‘Goodbye’ to the ‘Captain,’ the large vertical pugmill which we had hoped would be capable of extruding wider pieces but sadly has proved to be underpowered for the job.

It’s a perfectly good machine for pugging clay so do get in touch if you need one. 

Meanwhile we have taken a huge step and invested a fortune in a new machine, specially made for the job. It arrived last week having taken several weeks to travel from the west coast of the USA. 

 Three strong ‘lads’ from the site next door helped us lug it round and up the steps into the workshop, where it is now sitting ready to eat up clay and looking ever so slightly scary. Actually it is so long that Rodger is going to cut some bricks out of the wall behind so as to push the end of it into a recess.

I finished constructing and inscribing a batch of nineteen ripply dishes yesterday,

and enjoyed the ripples in the Kippford mud today, shining in the winter sun.

I have only completed one smaller batch of work so far this year, so it is encouraging to feel that at last things are underway.

Quite a Christmas - Roll on 2013

Roll on 2013!

The pots which came out of the kiln just before Christmas were abandoned and are still scattered untidily across the workshop. I have hardly looked at them, save for wrapping up the orders. The cellist is still lying on the floor playing to herself with no one to listen to her.

Yes, its all been a bit fraught with poor Rodger still in hospital, having given us quite a fright at times. The virus/ bug whatever it is has been a nasty blighter, and he has really been very unwell indeed. However as I write we are pretty sure things are looking up. He is much more himself, the fever is coming down and we hope the end is in sight.

 I managed the morning half of a New Year's Day walk from Rockcliffe to Sandyhills with some friends.

The  rain wasn't far away but then again neither was the sun.

 While I was enjoying the changing light, blowing away the old year and breathing in the new, Rodger was still stuck in his little hospital room, with the harsh strip lights and hot hospital air.

While I was listening to the breaking waves, he was listening to humming machines and bustling nurses.

But in the afternoon I was able to kidnap him for a short while and we drove down the Nith to Glencaple. The sun came out and he sat wrapped up like a snowman, breathing in the fresh air.

 We watched the sun setting disappearing behind Criffel.

Then it was back to hospital.  I hope not for too much longer.

The Shortest Day (Thank goodness)

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. It's amazing and slightly scary that a year can have passed by so quickly since I wished you all the best in December 2011.

 It has been a pretty intensive year pottery wise.  I took on perhaps too much, and with no long balmy summer days it was hard to find an excuse to stop for long. So I'm actually looking forward to a short break over Christmas to recharge my batteries. The turn of the year always feels like a new beginning and I am looking forward to starting a completely new batch of work in January. I still have an order for two tables which will be great to getting going on.

This week I managed to glaze and pack both kilns so tomorrow fingers crossed I should have my orders finished.

The week was rather complicated with Rodger ending up in hospital with a weird fever, probably a virus, and he's still stuck there while they conduct loads of tests. Without my Mr Fixit to hand for advice I was scuppered when the  tiny test kiln in which I was trying to fast fire a couple of pots (which needed to catch the Christmas post), started sparking alarmingly. (This one won't make it, so sorry)!

Then to crown it all I managed to pick up the winter norovirus bug (probably from the hospital which is struggling with it), so Christmas has truly gone pear shaped! . But so far the world hasn't ended and a new beginning is just around the corner. Besides which it has given me an excuse to sit down, still feeling a little wobbly, and write a post.  However I am still quite happy it's going to be the shortest day!

This is the other owl dish. I do like his colours, I will have to remember that combination. But did I write it down?

I had this off cut from the first flow through the extruder when the clay is still settling down and splitting. What a lovely tree it made. despite a slight panic over whether the thing will settle into a good flow, I really love these first lengths and always save them for something special.

Polar bear jugs and fluffy clouds

That's it - all my slip decorating this side of Christmas is finished.  Now I just need to get everything  dried out and into the kiln over the weekend for a glaze firing next week. In the 'Feral Choir' we have been singing lots of cold wintery songs, maybe this was what made me in a Polar bearish sort of mood. Actually these poor jugs were abandoned for way too long as other priorities took over. I had them in the outside damp cupboard (an old fridge - not on of course), but then forgot to bring them in one very frosty night. I lost three of them, it was quite interesting how the ice got into the leather hard clay and split them open.

There are four large name plaques drying out too. One poor person has been waiting nearly a year, but hey - they are on their way at last.

I started to pack the bisc this afternoon. I got the monster cellist dish in, just, after a few experiments At least I could squeeze a few other pots under the slant as well, and hopefully she will have shrunk sufficiently so that by the time I glaze her I can actually close the kiln door with her on a flat shelf.

There are now a whole troop of squirrels using our feeder. What a joy to watch them. The cats just stare in amazement, usually through the window,

then go back to sleep.

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?