Countdown to firing

Today I did a load of decorating. I was pretty tired, I felt rough yesterday so slept half the day, got to work late, then had to go back after tea for an evening shift. I have to get the bisc kiln on every day and couldn't afford another day off. It's too small for what I'm trying to do, but it's all I have at the moment so it'll have to do for a while until I can afford to upgrade.



The wood firing's drawing near - a week tomorrow - exciting! It'll be the first one since July. I don't have enough pots really, so it'll be an open pack. Another week of making would have been good, but that's always the way. I realise now that a lot of time went into making all the tableware that went through the electric kiln so I wasn't making pots for this firing. It's not a problem, this is going to be an interesting firing, lots of new things happening, even though it's going to be mainly jugs - big jugs, plus some slightly smaller jugs and a few more slightly smaller jugs - lots of jugs, I just love making jugs, that's the problem. When I say 'jugs' I mean UK jugs, which are the same as US pitchers. Ther is going to be a US jug in there too(a UK bottle).




This is Tim and Sue's clay from the Croyden cemetery. I've been looking at some crazily decorated Medieval pots, so some of the deco in the recent pots have been heavily influenced, including this mug. There are some jugs that I've decorated that are smothered in applied adornments. I'll maybe post them tomorrow if I'm feeling brave enough - certainly I wonder whether they're the sort of pots, like this mug, that you probably have to have an appreciation of English medieval pottery, in order to really like them?



This mug has a black slip, with subsequent pours of white. Blogger Matt's coming down to help Marky Mark and me with the firing - he's a dab hand with a chainsaw. Alex and Steve will be back to do some filming too. I've got some pots from Alex and one of his students coming, made from Hollyford clay that he took back with him last time. Also some of Hannah's and a few made by my good buddy Simon Hancox. Matt and Marky Mark will have pots in there too. There are one or two other pots around still, including one of Brad's. Thinking about it, I may have enough after all! Eek, under pressure, got to get off the computer, Joe's got homework to do on here. Cheers all