Three Fish plates

Last in the line of the latest batch of pottery are these really good fish plates.

I love their faces....

I broke this one.

Just, oops, it slid to the floor, and blammo. A million pieces.

It was entirely my own fault. I balanced it for a moment in a precarious (stupid) spot...it fell , seemingly in slow motion, while I stood helplessly watching. Some quick reflex type person probably could have caught it, but I am not that person. I have other talents, suppose.... Time to take a "break" (hahahaha!) from ceramics.

I think I will work on fabric for a while.....check back soon!

Ceramic Fish Bowls

This was a very fun project, a lot of detail, too, but I am very pleased with the results...

These are going to be used for soup.

Blue is particularly hard to work with, in pottery painting. All the blues look infuriatingly the same, before firing. And they all look light and grey. So its very hard to visualize what the end result will be. You take it on trust. And keep painting.

And the blues here turned out just as planned. I wanted deep bright blues inside, and that's what I got, with good definition in the orchids and leaves. I also managed to get a sense of a lot of depth and a watery quality in the painting; I am very pleased .

Painted Chair backs

This was a quick project to paint a simple design on the silk backs of these rather nice chairs. This kind of work requires a lot of focus and concentration, since I cannot make a single mistake.

No drips, no re-dos, no practice.

And they turned out just fine!

Final Installment Of Native Plants Plates

Finally, here all the Florida Native Plants Plates pictured together in a group!

They have been done for a couple of weeks, and I did photograph them all together right away, but I showed them on black velvet, and it just didn't work out well...The colours looked 'off', and the black was too much...I don't think the camera could handle the black AND the very, very bright colours, especially the reds, in one operation!

Well, they are all great, I am very happy with them, and they look great all together.

The backs on the big plates are red. The backs on the smaller plates are green.

The reds are VERY bright and exciting, with wonderfully contrasting blues and greens in the pattern.

Great Newspaper Article

I was in the paper last week!
Check it out: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090627/ARTICLE/906269951##

Read the article from the source, or from the copies here.

Click on these photos to see large enough to read.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090627/ARTICLE/906269951##

Back Again!

After a lovely combination of three week vacation and major kiln repair, I am finally able to post some new work! After a major overhaul of wiring, and 2 element replacements, I made a test batch of tiles and a big bowl, to see if things were back to normal.

A happy sight indeed!

Not only that, the kiln seems to be getting it all done about a half hour early.

Great efficiency. Thank you, kiln.

Now that I can depend on proper firing, I can re fire the plates I had to re do after a horrible amount of breakage, just before I went off on holiday. (See previous post).

I cant say I minded running away from disaster.

So today, I am happy to report very spiffy looking plates, and as is often the case, the re dos are even better than the originals.

I now know to never, never fire during very damp conditions, like rain storms....that is in fact what probably broke all the plates in that fateful load. It was raining cats and dogs that night. If the temperature in the kiln was also inconsistent, before the repairs, then that surely didn't help either.

This week we had a lot of rain too, and I waited until an entirely rain free day, firing in the afternoon, just to make sure.

I waited to re fire this lovely pitcher that was under fired in one of the firings before the repair...thank goodness it didn't fit in that final load.

I have 5 more plate re dos to fire yet, and a few new pieces, including some soup bowls that will have fish and orchids on them...I feel so relieved to have the kiln working. I was all traumatised by that broken stuff, and was afraid to fire the re dos! Now I can relax , I think.