and the answer is yes....

oh yey....thanks petar for your super help today nothing like having an expert grouter around, cheers......

are we there yet??

are we there yet??? well oh so close...heres yesterdays efforts and yes i really did break out the angle grinder...

the panorama image really does make the table look longer and a little blurry in the middle..

so all glued down and grouting today back on the video i think... should be a satisfying completion..

and just for something odd while i remember it..
.... weird is all i can say....what must go on in my head as i sleep....there's the police who 'pull me over' for pushing the car from behind and sus the car because it's too small!! I'm like it's a rental. kinda the size of on old fiat but new...and then i'm being chased by the nicest hit man who tells me i must get out of his block which i can't get out of and he keeps popping up in the strangest of places...the car of course is useless as a getaway vehicle and there i am trying to drive it up some stone steps up a hill?????and what would a dream be if you didn't end up in the river with your car full of miniature cows????? pffffffftttt!!! weird man...!

now that's what i call a kiln filler...

Created with flickr slideshow.

as i caused a minor catastrophe breaking some of the tiles for table 1 i had to do an emergency kiln load along with the recuts, and i'm happy...i did some slump plates using the textured rolling pin on the backs combining some ideas from the print workshop and my last glaze fire....happy jan!

piece by piece....

I've always enjoyed a jigsaw puzzle at christmas time...so this year it's just on a larger scale!!! so here we go table #2, there's some very special sections in T2 as well as T1 so i'd love to get my friend to photographically document these before they go to their home down by the beach....it's been such a mammoth project and i will miss them.. seems quite strange really but it's been more than a commission and i really hope lots of fun times are had around them...

i'm cracking the glaze kiln tomorrow and hope to have figured out the firing schedule now that the kilns have new elements they're shooting up no problems at all..

and a few new pieces in the kiln too, i'm trying out some hand building for a bit trying to put more of the imperfections back into my work and combining the raku clay and some printed transfer deco along with some slip layering woohoo pics soon...

have a super week and hope you all had a great christmas some super time with family and friends....me i'm personally sing starred out for a bit!!!

plates or not plates....

some new pieces i'm playing with definitely inspired by the last tile batch i made at the print workshop and with some slip deco techniques from dougs place too a few finger dabs and my new tool the tooth kidney!! its getting into warm season here so there wont be a huge amount of drying time to play with these guys were cracking at every opportunity...

anyhoo have a super christmas everyone, its very quiet here with family away in the UK for christmas so who knows a few friends for dinner....

marki market....

what a beautiful day!! i was on my way to roses this morning cruising through the hills thinking i haven't seen much wildlife lately!! usually there's a kangaroo or 3, ducks, a koala crossing the road but lately nothing!! so what do i see around the bend? a couple of emus strolling casually down the road towards me 'ahhh'! avoid... swurve.....ok that's my wildlife fix for a bit!

so a stunning day, we set up in record time and the crowd was teaming, the coffee queue was super long hence only one trip for rose,.... heaps of visitors as per usual and a very special visit from our good friend ali who was absolutely superb at helping pack up so we could get to the pub on an early minute....yey ali...

off to sleepies, i'm exhausted...ciao all, have a super week wherever you be...

a few panoramas around our stall taken in the quite moments today....

le tablerrrrr...

friday and saturday sticking, cutting, cutting, sticking, dropping oooops!! sticking, cutting, sticking, dropping oooops!!! ' i did it again'!!! thanks for the cue...so friday exhausting and all i got done was sorting table 1 from table 2 tiles and glueing to the mesh..

method being all the spacing sorted pre gluing then cementing down sections one at a time.. the dropping was not planned of course but there ya go i was having dreams of dropping tiles, at least it was only a few..

so saturday was cutting the edge strips and happy cementing, phew that was one long day... i got home 9.30pm cooked tea sat down watch some tellie and got half way through a show and my glass of wine only to have a power cut...so i sit and wait ooh theres the flicker is it comng back on? nope flick off again!! ok wheres my mobile?? on the desk it's pitch black and i creep across the room to my desk and grab the phone.. click oooh light yey!! now wheres my candle stick and...where's the matches?? so anyhoo an early night for my aching back and luckily my pod charged up so at least some music to drift off to.....

allo, allo, allo.....

you'll never guess what i did this afternoon!!!
it took me ages to get the tables separated....but now we have some order and tomorrow is cementing these guys down wish me luck and still videoing the gig so it'll be an epic when finished....

below pic ....i though this was a cool abstract piece, i'm looking at all these shapes now and sure some more inspiration will come from all the rejects.....

the ceramic tile store just down the road has been so great with info and sorting out all the bits i need, thanks to kevin also who's working really hard on a work project right now and misses out on all the fun of putting the tables together, oh well you can sit back and rant at me later in your most encouraging tone as you always do when they're finished...

more later.... ciao ciao...

12 days of mayhem...

I pinched this one from Hannah this morning...

interlude...

hey all a little interlude in the table construction and a quick kiln filler time as 4 tiles decided to warp out in the last firing....oh yey...

so a few flat plates and some new hand built plates as you may remember the screen workshop pt 2 was play time for me and i've decided to repeat the textured backs which you can see above and i just realised i didn't take pics of the backs i must rectify that tomorrow, my list is growing and no pressure or anything this week.. HA!!.....

How many times have you witnessed someone picking up your wares and immediately check out the bottoms???? so this is kind of a 'surprise ending' so to speak... in the bucket a stack of tile recuts ready for recycling...and a few buckets of mush that have been waiting for the same for ages...

and the last tiles below are ready for inscriptions to go under the tables on completion with a dedication note for the clients... so here's to a busy week getting sorted to cement these guys down and working out all the finer details....

my open studio sale went well, a little quieter than last year and perhaps my marketing needs to be bumped up a notch...chats later on that one...

open studio christmas sale

hi all, hope you can drop by..sat 12th dec 10am - 4pm... my address is on the flyer, cheers all..

fresh slideshow...

Created with flickr slideshow.

ah at last!!... my last cone 6 firing.. lovely new teapots also in the black satin glaze...spot the blunder on my colour cups!! not half hard eh? note to self write a note to self on making cups!!

i'm off to the urban cow studio tomorrow with some new pots and firing the last kiln load of table 2 tiles...

and if you're nearby this saturday is my open studio, hope you can drop by and have a cuppa and search for some gifts...cheers all, happy week in the clay stuff...

fresh...

here's a little sample from my last firing....the plates from print workshop came out fab... there's underglaze deco, glaze colour and layering of glazes too, all makes for a rather rich surface...so now all i need to think about is imagery that i'd like to use over and over... i really like the scroll pattern that simone had and everyone went crazy over the face images so i'm thinking i may tweek that idea... the 1st plate also has a textured back, it was rolled out with a pastry roller and has come up yum..

so a quick update i'm onto the last couple of glaze firings for the table tiles and i'll put something together soon with vid, ah the deadline looms!....

another layer....

howdy all, i have been busy but more of the same so not a lot of point in boring you with the same pics of me glazing tiles and waxing tiles although my i just burnt my finger tips again in the hot wax dance is pretty funny,.... should have set up the video!!

anyhoo a regular crowd scene clubbing today...and i did get all my cups done just not all of the teapots, and some of the plates i deco'd on our print day, the tiles are still waiting bisque fire... and the weather has been so random it's like cyclone city out there right now....
we had a power cut this afternoon so i ran out of steam in the dark with all the rain and clouds above it's a little hard to see what ya doing...!

so hopefully monday i can finish the glazing...and get a cone 6 glaze through this friday..
all steam ahead with the table tiles and i bisque to go possibly 2 glaze firings ....then comes the checking tiles and cementing to the table tops all before christmas day, i think i will vid that for future reference....like never do this again!!!!
but seriously i've learned so much from the table challenge and a big break is probably deserved...but i will consider cafe table size, more like the fishy table i did that's in the garden getting pelted with rain right now....

so hope all our american friends had a great thanksgiving wkd with families etc stuffing the turkeys and themselves.. is there a vegetarian option to that feast..? ciao for now...

it's all in the crackle....

howdy all, i took a few photos of some new pieces to go into town this week and here's the little guy...talk about mini..so cute but i get request for larger...

anyhoo sunny stirling on sunday stood up to it's name...sun, wind, rain, more wind, cold, sun....etc you get the picture its 40+ for most of the weeks then sunday, market day it's drizzly and all the rest,... as always it's in the layering and one needs to go prepared..and quite busy early hence no pics of peeps and their pooches, I did get a request for a labrador sized pooch bowl they thought the chiwawa size was a tad hard up for meal time...hehe..

anyway must get back to glazing and tables coming along, i'm trying to stay on schedule with firing and the club kilns are getting serviced this wed... new elements hopefully to replace the ones that have jumped out of there niches....happy claying all, whatever your shade maybe...

rain song.....

after the rain on friday, extremely welcome it was...i was working away listening to the racket outside and i thought i heard the bird from the skippy intro...but it must have flown away.. birds were darting everywhere, got their happy dance on post rain...happy wkd all..

beatrice wood...mama of dada...

studio tour vid comp....

Did you catch this email from CAD? what fun a video comp..!
I reckon this one would be fun to enter and who knows one of us bloggers could win a new skutt wheel.. check it out the links below, they didn't say if it was US only but reckon it would be a great exercise anyway.....c'mon peeps get ya creative caps on we have a few weeks to get it together...ceramic arts daily comp.

bigguns....

I took aunty for a tour of the garden pots today she was looking for something 'so big'...about this wide...

well we go over to my jumbo pot which is nicely mossed over and aged by now yes?...apart from i can't part with it and i haven't a kiln that size anymore to fire in.....blast!!
and that's an orange on the ground just to give you an idea of the scale..

so here's the thing... all of my pots do a tremendous job of holding water..even the one on deck with a lid! now that one is a mystery to me, it absolutely fills to the top...! bizarre...

so anyhoo, i'm on the hunt for a kiln probably not the monster that my jumbo was fired in but a decent size electric, let me know if you hear of one...

aqua...

ohh tharr she be... the last colour section of table 2...
apart from a few recuts and they'll be decoed asap..

I took advantage of a cooler afternoon and headed down club after a little catchup with last years club president and sooo happy to see her recovering from surgery so well, cheers pam..
so the last large tile section got its aqua coat and left now are the recuts, i'm fairly confident i'll get those done in one session..

so the 1st bisque went well and i'd have reloaded except for the newly decoed tiles prob wouldn't have appreciated a hot kiln... maybe tomorrow..the kiln was packed solid with most of the tiles in, a few mugs, a good stash of teacups and teapots... so i suppose i'll be busy glazing and firing for the next week now, all systems go.....feeling a little 'thunderbirds are go' even,.. da da da daaa!

red...

oh getting closer to table completion, the reds are done tonight, just the aqua tiles and the recuts to deco...
oh and have i mentioned about the latest heatwave?? 37 today and it's november!!! we wont see a break in the heat til sunday so i'm down the club whenever the heat breaks..

bisque firing should start thursday, it takes 2 kiln loads per table with a tight pack which means all our kiln shelves... anyhoo keep cool all.. ciao for now..

you screen, i screen...

another great workshop at the club today... we discussed the imagery of last weeks wkshp and design layouts, how to use imagery more than once..also the specifics of where to get screens made in town and all that stuff, it was a really good hands on day..

jill mixed us up some home made inks to go with the professional ones.. rae had a screen made this week so froggy got a work out and anna brought her celtic designs as well as some cobalt tissue transfer..

i kinda got carried away with making tiles and working on the background layers so didn't print a whole lot today but i had a great time and used a couple of tiny images judith had printed on some tissue and used some of anna's cobalt tissue transfers for my oriental inspired landscapes, they're on raku clay so should be good for firing up to c6..

cheers all happy clay days..

all tiled out...

my backs a killing me and i'm off to snooze land...!

this evenings been productive ...i considered the coming week and it's heatwave and decided there was no way i could decorate the tiles in that.....it's going to be high 30's all week and at this point i cant afford to loose a week....

so down to the club i wandered after dinner to set about organising the cleaned up tiles, it took me about an hour to get the jigsaw together but a good session it was, a good radio groove segment and the deco began...

2 more major sections to go and the last batch of recut to deco and hit the firing cycle...

woooo hoooooooo......