Monday's Mushroom class

Janelle's mushies are looking so colourful.

Can't wait to see them finished

Ella got her mushroom stem up in no time flat.

Julie finished her mushies and is onto bigger things

Ahhh got to be happy with the new lights in the pottery class area. 

OMG we can see!

Julie's fish bowl got a bit of a crack from drying too quickly

 but with some tender loving care, she'll survive

(all our fingers crossed)

It's going to look beautiful.

the pots, it's all about the pots

This beauty is for an exhibition coming up at 

Tactile ARTS

"Fire Works"

Its all nice and smokey from the fire

Smokey Shiny bottle

G sure has some nice shapes 

Must be the New Zealand influence

even the underside of this little cutie has some lovely colour

and of course a nice little sticker too

The kiln is opened

We have some packets of pots inside the kiln today.

Pots are wrapped with an assortment of goodies inside, 

from seaweed, coffee grindings, wood shavings. and even copper carbonate

This gives a beautiful effect when firing Terra sigillata.

Terra sigillata is an ultra refined clay slip that gives a soft sheen when applied to pots. 

Its then polished and burnished to a high gloss then fired to around 700 degrees.

Opening the packages can be exciting.

nesting birds

the look we want is a soft smooth subtle colour

 Some pots come out with a lovely smokey kind of effect.

These are still way too hot to touch, 

but it's hard to wait till they cool down enough, hence the gloves.

Now we just need to polish them up with oils and....

please stay tuned for the final products in the next posting.

(just building the suspense a little)

Mobile kiln in action

There are a couple of exhibitions coming up

and G is working hard to make some nice pots for them

He got the mobile gas kiln out

 (another amazing dump shop find)

 into the driveway yesterday

He sticks sticks in the fire hole

says it makes good reduction at it gives the flames something to eat up

and then that takes out the oxygen and gives the pots better colour

(as a boy his mum said not to play with fire, so you can bet he does (still) at Every opportunity)

Fire extinguishes at ready; 

We have a firehouse at the end of our road

 we do worry they will get called if a neighbour gets a bit excited about 

a little fire or smoke action

Does get hot - 700 degrees

 this is a pretty low temperature

normally we go to 1000 degrees

but these pots are special

more on that next time

 these pots need to cool before I can show the results

Woo Hoo, the kiln open! From the not the Hanuman plate class

Inside joke with the title. 

When we and our artist friends go to a local restaurant here called "Hanumans"

(fab Thai - Indian - Nonya cuisine)

 we sit at tables laid with amazing looking plates 

and we all scramble for the best looking one,

 Each one is different in pattern, glaze and colour.

We can't help ourselves.

Doesn't everyone do this?

Jasmine's beautiful plates.

stoneware clay

Painted underglaze on bisqued ware with a clear gloss glaze

Janine Ryan with some of her beautifully glazed plates

Jasmine's tapas plates and boats

Inspecting, picking up and touching, turning over and feeling.

Gotta pick all the pots up and feel them, it's a must do.

Jasmine Jan's glaze on glaze

 dragon eggs by Jasmine

How good do these matching tapas plates and boats look?

 I bet these come out at Jasmine's next dinner party.

So great the ladies got to take home a range of gorgeous plates and serving dishes. 

These will be well used, I can tell, and no doubt be talked about at each dinner party they appear in. Unique Organic and Useful

not the Hanuman plate class

So this awesome plate below is one "glaze test" 

by the very talented Jasmine Jan 

for "the plate class"

Waxing the bottoms of pots for glazing

Jasmine, Janine Ryan and Gerald 

Glazing

testing the flow on the table first

and then onto the plate

for glaze on-glaze

Jasmine made these gorgeous patterns on her slab made serving bowls

And below are the leftovers. 

When amazing students come for class, and bring lunch, with cake for dessert...

(gluten free with oranges and dates, & yum topping of cream cheese and cream)

OMG, how lucky are we?

Stay tuned to see the results from "the plate class"

We are having a kiln opening party on Friday.  

I cannot wait!

Thanks to the universe - the studio is filling up with useful stuff

We have been looking for some new trolleys for a while now

The universe must have been heard 

because whilst looking in catalogs for new ones, (costing hundreds of dollars)

 we found these two at the good old dump shop.

A good old clean up and they are good as new. 

So good they are the perfect size to hold our work boards.

We use these for drying and storing work on.

 The wheels makes it easy getting around to the kiln, 

or out of the way for more space to work in the studio

Perfecto!

The new slab roller is wonderful for making work easy

She's getting quite a workout between  the students and myself

One of Gerald's pots ready to get glazed and fired

Some students work ready for the kiln

Gerald getting ready for an exhibition called "Coffee"

hope to show when finished (these are still drying)

Its been a while since I did some flowers and I have missed the process.

Forgot how good it feels to something make the familiar stuff.

Gerald is doing some tests  here for a public art piece. 

More on that later (sorry) They need natural colours and

these are clay and dirt for slips that Gerald dug up locally

We scored this old cleaners trolley at the dump shop too. 

a quick scrub and she's perfect for keeping tools in.

Makes for easy access for class and studio use.