I had to go to work today, but spent most of the day putting it off. Yesterday was such a hard day. We were digging all day and the jiggering my hands took from pick axe hitting against rock, plus last night's bass playing up at Nic's, made kneading clay an achy, painful process this afternoon.
Nevertheless, it was a constructive afternoon's work that ran on into the evening, I haven't been home long. There were lots of handles to put on and jugs to decorate.....
...and bits of clay to stick on to big tankards.
The drawing on these harvest jugs is the fanciest I've done in wet slip.
When they're fired, the type of lines should look something like the ones on this big jar from my last firing.
Because the drawing is scribed through very wet slip, the stylus pushes the slip aside as the mark is created, resulting in an outline to the line that captures the spontaneous movement of the mark making. Ha, try saying that fast, don't know if any of that made sense - I know what I mean. Anyway, it's one of those things you get one shot at, so it's challenging and I have to be in the right frame of mind in order to get it right, but today it felt like it went well.
And finally, here's another picture of my new trench - I'm proud of my new trench. You can see by the water that's in it, what a problem I've had with drainage. The trench has also proved to be a really useful hole to fill with loads of old work that I'm sick of the sight of - I've enjoyed smashing all that up.
Marky Mark and I spent the day digging a drainage trench, before heading up to Nic's party in the evening - good to see Bloggers Paul and Andrew there. Sore hands today.
Here's Mark breaking through the dam, allowing the water to run through the trench, then away down the road. It'll be filled with broken crocks and stone and should sort out the trouble of the flooded kiln shed for ever!
Off to work now to put on handles and do some decorating.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
It was a surprise to wake up to snow again this morning - there I was thinking Spring had arrived. The boys' school was closed so they had a day at home.
I walked to work across the fields. It was beautiful.
More little lambs.
Then I had a really productive day of making. Marky Mark and I worked on until eight this evening. Earlier in the day I discovered £30 in a jacket pocket that I didn't know I had, so I took Hil out for a beer tonight which was very nice.
Mark has the day off work tomorrow so we're going to dig a drainage trench to stop the kiln shed flooding, before heading up to Nic's in the evening for his belated birthday party.
It's been ages since I blogged - there's been lots of stuff going on and I just haven't had time to sit down and do this. It doesn't take long to get behind, not just with putting on here what I've been up to, but keeping up with what everybody else has been doing too.
Here's a catch up from the last few days.
Last week ended with the slip on these big jugs. I decided to keep them fairly simple, with the pinstripe emphasising their tall, slender form.
This one should become black with golden stripes. There was a small jar that came out of the last firing, the stripes were fiery orange - I hope this one works like that, it'll be quite striking if it does I think.
This one is green with black lines. I've used this design on a few pots in previous firings, but never on a straight sided form like this. It seems to work well on either straight or bellied shapes. I'll use a very pale glaze over it so that the green slip should be a lively, bright shade.
And this one will be amber and yellow - maybe a little green glaze, I haven't decided yet whether it'll need it or not. When it's fired, there'll be a lot more contrast in the areas that look quite flat at the moment.
Luke turned sixteen at the weekend. My boys are growing up so fast, it feels like they're growing and I'm shrinking - I guess the fact is, that's the truth. Luke's quite a few inches taller than me now. We had a fab day out at the footy on Saturday and watched Exeter win, which was a great birthday treat.
On Sunday I went up to Fursdon House to meet up with a group of artists with whom I'm doing an exhibition in May. The show is to be of work created in response to the countryside of the estate.
It was a beautiful day. I used to live on the Fursdon Estate, so I know it really well. I miss it too - we moved back into the village a couple of years ago because it was too remote for the boys and they needed to be closer to their friends. Here are the artists exploring the environment. I'll write more about them on a later post.
On Monday John Edgeler came to stay. He's the author of some really excellent books and owns the Long Room Gallery in Winchcombe where the Derby Boys Show is going to be held in April.
I made these small jugs - I'll sgraffito some of these when they're toughend up
John and I talked about plans for a forthcoming Slipware event that's to happen later in the summer. I'll post more about this later too - it's going to be really good and requires a more thorough explaination than I can manage in tonight's post.
Yesterday we went up to Nic's. He was firing his kiln full of pots for his spring on-line show. Blogger Andrew was there helping with the firing and so was Pete, a former student of Nic's - great to see them. Sabine was busily putting the music to one of Nic's latest videos - nice choice Nic!
John left at about lunchtime.
Here are the little jugs I made earlier in the week, all handled, and in the foreground, some mugs that Jess made today. She's getting quite a few orders for her pots now which is really good.
Marky Mark came up this evening
And slipped a moulded dish. We worked on into the evening. We'll do the same tomorrow - lots to do, many pots to make before heading off to Scotland in a couple of weeks.
So that's what's been going on.
My head's in a really good place at the moment - full of the joys of Spring, in spite of today's snow.
Well that's the end of a tiring but fulfilling week in the workshop. My legs feel stiff tonight, which is a sign that I need to do more exercise - I've been taking too many lifts through the winter months.
This week I've been walking through lanes and across fields to work, it's been great to get back out into the countryside again. The fields are being ploughed ready to be sown with the seeds for this year's crops.
Things are changing at a pace, Spring's definitely on its way which is good for the head and the heart, if not the legs. This is the little road bridge over Hollywater, that I cross every day and when I walk, is always a place I stop for quiet contemplation. The snowdrops, that have been spectacular, will soon make way for the primroses.
Primroses are probably my favourite flowers of all, a sign of the birth of the new season. The hedgerows will be full of them in a couple of weeks.
I made six of these harvest jugs this week. This picture shows an old bloke putting the scroll onto the base of the handle. This is a simple decorative element traditionally applied to the harvest jugs of Devon.
And here are three of the six.
Off into Exeter tomorrow to see some crowds. I love being alone in my countryside hideaway, but sometimes it does me good to get into the city - it would be easy to become a complete recluse.
Lunch somewhere nice to celebrate Luke's birthday, then we're going to watch Exeter City play footy in the afternoon, c'mon City!
He was very happy with the plaudits by the way, thank you.
What a mad week it's been, late to bed every night. Luke finished assembling his sketchbook at about midnight last night - it looks great, loads of photos, drawings and research.
Hil's inspection went really well today so she's taking it a bit easier this evening. They were only told that they were going to be inspected on Monday, so it's thrown upon them without much warning. Fortunately she's very good at keeping her paperwork in order, so the last few nights she's been checking through everything just to make sure nothing had been overlooked. All was good. It's stressful though, I can't see why anybody would want to teach.
Guess who? This is Luke's other GCSE coursework that he submitted today along with his model. He did this a few weeks ago, when I was bearded. He's worked really hard at his painting techniques. This one's acrylic on canvas, he did some great watercolour landscape work too.
He'll be sixteen on Sunday - no wonder there's so much white hair in my beard.
I've not got much made today as I had admin stuff to do this morning before walking to the workshop - just a couple of harvest jugs. The walk gave me time to think about how I was going to decorate the big jugs I made earlier in the week. There are three more that had their first coat of slip today, they'll get a second coat in the morning.
These three are finishhed and drying on the shelf. This one has a white slip, which is mottled green with copper carbonate, which is sprinkled on while the slip is wet.
The applied decoration on this one....
will break through the surface of the slip on its high points.
I've done this decoration before, but have yet to get one through the kiln the way that I want it - maybe this time.
Jessica came up this evening and unpacked her kiln load of pots. We put them in the electric kiln because they hadn't been dry enough to make it into the last woodfiring and it's still a few weeks until the next wood kiln burn up. She had some fantastic results, I think she was really happy, I certainly was, I'm proud of what she's achieving. It's so satisfying seeing how her skills are coming along, particularly the way that she's mastered the concept when decorating, of taking some very basic elements and using them in a simple but clever way. There was a lot of good stuff to learn from that batch of pots, so I expect she'll be back next week with lots of ideas about where to take it next. Very pleasing - I guess that's what makes people want to teach - ah, I get it!
This computer's in demand tonight, Luke's frantically printing out stuff for his sketchbook ready to hand it in tomorrow for his GCSE and Hil's preparing for her OFSTED inspection in the morning poor thing, so short but sweet this one.
I'm really proud of what Jessica's achieving. Here she is fettling a batch of egg cups that she's made. There'll be more about these on a later post. She has a lot of shiny new pots that will be coming out of the electric kiln tomorrow evening too, so exciting stuff.
I was invited to see the three-day old lambs at the farm nextdoor this evening - aaaaw, bless 'em.
And here is Luke's GCSE piece, fired, finished and fabulous.
Good lad Luke, a well deserved success.
He's got lots of great ideas for his next models and can't wait to do some more - the boy has a future in this game I think, time for me to retire and hand over the reins.
And finally, Happy Birthday Blogger Matt, hope you have a good 'un.
Well it wasn't that short in the end, but it was sweet.
Worked really late tonight. Luke came up and glazed his other model which took until 10.30. It's in the kiln now so will be out in the morning, hopefully looking as good as the last one.
I made another five of these big jugs. The tallest is just under 20", which is as tall as the chamber of my biscuit kiln, but they'll shrink a fair bit as they dry so that's fine.
Jessica's with me tomorrow daytime and Marky Mark in the evening, so I'll have plenty of company. Today it was just me, the Nuthatch and the Woodpecker.
I want to try and get some huge fat jugs made tomorrow if I can, then that'll be most of the big stuff made. The next firing will be some time around 27th March.
It's been busy times here lately. Alex and Steve came on Friday to do more work on the film. It was interview stuff and I rambled and stumbled and stuttered over my words. I wish I was better at saying what I want to say, I always think to myself afterwards, I wish I'd said this, or I wish I hadn't said that - oh well, too late now, hopefully my pots will speak better than I do.
Saturday morning we went to the little church in Stockleigh English to deliver the Flower Ladies jug.
The jug's been in the workshop for quite a while, so it was a great to see it in its new home, made me feel quite emotional. The Flower Ladies met me there and I was able to hand it over to them. I hope it'll be there for a long time to come.
Saturday night I played with the Love Daddies, which was quite bad really. With a bit of help from some bad mixing from the sound men, the smoking ban and our under-rehearsed set, we managed to clear the hall fairly successfully. A shame really, we'd put a lot of effort in to it. Good job I'm used to that kind of thing - pottery's so often the same, loads of hard work just to end up with a disappointing outcome. It was the early hours by the time we'd broken down the kit and cleaned the hall up. Maybe I'm just getting too old for all that stuff.
Sunday evening I took Luke up to the workshop so he could glaze his GCSE model. The tree broke off before it was fired, so he made another model, enabling him to use this one as a glaze test, so we popped it in the kiln last night. More of that shortly.
Today I added the applied decoration to the big jug I made last week.....
....and threw a big baluster jug. I'll be making more big jugs tomorrow.
The next firing will be pots for the Derby Boys show at the Long Room Gallery, Winchcombe, with my college contemporaries Nic Collins and Simon Hancox.
I have to go to Scotland in three weeks to do a demo for the Scottish Potters Association(scary), so I want to get all the big stuff made before then.
And now to end this rambling post, the highlight - some pictures of Luke's model that came out of the kiln today. I'm very proud of him. He was thrilled by all the comments that folk left for him on earlier posts by the way, thank you.
I think he'll be getting a good grade, he deserves it, he's worked hard.
His other one will be out of the kiln on Wednesday, ready to submit for his exam by Thursday's deadline - that's either cutting it fine, or great planning - hmm, think I know which.
Luke decided he ought to make another model just in case the other doesn't come through the kiln successfully, so he's worked really hard on it this week.
He finished it tonight. His first one is in the kiln bisc firing. It'll be out in the morning, so fingers crossed.
I went up to Cookie's workshop this afternoon to help with the backdrop for Saturday's gig. His workshop is in an idyllic setting, an old barn in a semi-derelict Victorian farm yard. Joe, my younger son came too and played with two of Cookie's children. Here's Joe, wearing my work jacket.
And here's Cookie, executing some energetic brush strokes, he made a great job of it.
This evening Marky Mark came up to the workshop. I got started with making the next kiln load. In at the deep end with a big tapered jug. This one's about 20 inches high. I fancy making some ridiculously tall ones.
Lack of confidence and self doubt can be very destructive sometimes. This jug seemed to go pretty well though, so my head's in a much better place tonight than it was. Just as well, Alex and Steve are coming tomorrow to do some more work on the film. It's good to be making again, I really needed the break.
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