wood fired raku coming up...

i'm feeling inspired after watching simon leach create a raku kiln out of mesh and fibre... my plan was to build a wood fired raku similar to anna's lil rocket but after watching simon's video i'm thinking get out the angle grinder and cut this baby in half...

so here's the plan and let me know if you have any brainwaves on this...i'm going to create a firebox in the front section of the 'floor' using firebricks we have left over at the club create a raised shelf area horizontally and reclad the fibre on the roof surface..

the chimney will be the cut out hole that already exists in the kiln now and the firebox goes that end too, i'll probably need to put a baffle using fibre for the chimney hole as it might result in no hair no eyebrows otherwise when stoking...

fully loaded....

so another market been and gone and i'm enjoying a quite moment on australia day what a super idea for a public holiday and no i am not working today other than a little garden effort...and later breaking out the webber to cook the roast in, yum...

so fully loaded my lil car made it to market carefully avoiding all the bike riders out for the 'tour down under' and dodging them around the windy hill roads is not an easy thing a few screaching tyre noises were to be heard on the way!! well maybe just hitting those corners a tad too fast...! anyhoo a lovely market day with heaps of peeps out, lots of looking and a few buys a bit quieter than we had hope but it was a lovely day with heaps of friends out and that really makes for a great day.....

well one report to be made about a very uncouth lil beagle who chose my bargain box to relieve himself!!!!!!!!!!! what can i say???? nada!! i went of to the market tap up the road for a few trips and doused the whole lot with soapy water and sun dried them off. needless to say the display was changed after that those crates must smell great to beagles, they use those dogs at customs here at the airport with good reason!!

so off to enjoy the rest of a fine sunny day, and the video studio competition results are out this week, so it will be interesting to see if they choose a mixed bag the 1st one i saw this morning was rather serious...

studio tourette...

here's a lil taste of my studio tour video that i sent into ceramics arts daily for the video tour comp...unfortunately it was very hot while i shot this one hence the voice going and generally looking like a beetroot!! probably could have done with some more music in there but anyhoo no stress.. it was a good challenge and i still haven't had a clean out yet, there's probably buckets and buckets of dried up test glazes and just stuff that accumulates across the year...i will get in the mood for it one day!!

feel free to ask what the heck is that??? as i probably didn't explain myself in minute detail...happy wkd all...

getting plastered....

a super time we had yesterday at roses studio, we planned a lil plaster workshop between rose, ali and myself to do some work together and also be influenced by each others processes...i've made some simple slump plate molds, ali made some rather large plate molds and rose got stuck into mr HIIIYA a lil plastic money box that somehow references both sumo wrestlers and astro boy!!!! a complicated piece with lots of undercuts that is now in a 4 piece mold!! we had so much fun with the lil guy his bare bum popping out of the mold work when we flipped the mold over was just too cute!!

ali had to do the kid dash at 3pm so rose and i carried on into the night and a long one it was i got home 11.30pm last night exhausted and quite a cracking head after a very hot day....

checkout the pics of rose swimming in ali's mold cottle and of course my lefte braine righte brain shots of my cottle work i thought for sure i was losing it last night when i couldn't work out what the image was of...quite an interesting image as the cottle work was set up on a large mirror and you get the roof reflection behind the work looking like some corrugated card...i do have fun staring at those kind of images and making them flip backwards and forwards in the negative positive space..

anyhoo, weird not long weekend coming up public holiday on tuesday not monday who's idea was that!!? and market on sunday here's hoping for some lovely weather and a smoking hot crowd!!!

lefte or righte brained? tell me what you see....

I discovered this one last night when flicking through the images on my phone cam...tell me what you see 1st then stare at it for a while and see if the image flips.....




i was looking at my pics on roses back porch last night from our long day of plaster mold making and couldn't work out what i'd taken a pic of then later i flipped the phone upside down and freaky!!
there it is!! i was thinking when did we make bread buns rising in a pan or is it stones in a hole??

hello my pretties....

hello ello ello....where to start?? sat night i think... was a lovely outdoor gig where my friend to you shall be known as 'drek' not quite as green as shrek but one syllable all the same...its been a while since we've all gone out to a gig, me and my friends that be...don't know why just hasn't happened... so drek got this gig a last minute reshuffle to the town hall as the other band that were joining the pub setting canceled.... so where do ya do a gig in prospect? well outside of a very famous coffee shop called CIBO's who did very nicely from the forecourt crowd...we bunkered down amongst the trees, all lit up with lovely led lights i suspect as the colours kept changing making the space a little surreal with all the up lighting... so the sounds were dance- funk- jazz -lounge with an upbeat- a song about dancing in your undies and yes that is the only title i can recall ...funny that!! something about tom cruise and some other movie star jigging in their jocks...anyhoo twas a fun night topped off with yummo pumpkin and spinach pizza hold the cheese as im still no cow dairy and finished the leftovers for lunch today adding some sheep's feta and kalamata olives...oooh nice..

and this morning to my pretties i cracked the kiln oooh so nice....lovely when things work out so here's the collection, some lovely new lil blue crackle bowls and a whole range of summer bowls just right for salads and snacks should go down a treat at market this sunday, see you all then! and an interlude on thursday is a plaster mold workshop at roses so a lil vid i think for that one...cheers all have a super week and get cracking!!......

balmy evening...

off to the beach we trecked last night celebrating lauren's b'day my niece, only took us 22 years to get there apparently it's been always inclement for her event and we just haven't made it...but there ya go persistence...and a lovely sunset it was...i grabbed a few shells some lovely pointy ones to experiment with and perhaps on the tiles...

and this week a plaster workshop at roses place woohoo!, i'll be doing some plate molds to whip up emergency kiln fillers and just play with the plate form which can be a bit tense when throwing them ... so the goal is to loosen up with the plate form and work more on the deco side!!

mud says hi!...

and there we have it! the whole system back together and not a leak in site yey!!



and of course the posts are still waiting it's been a bit wet after the heat wave and not much has been done pergola wise...ahh back to it, warming up again for the wkd...

Mud says hi!
but that was all i could get out of him this morning nap time apparently...he's outside now chasing a mouse around..you wouldn't think he was 13...

and this is what happens when you deco over 40C sparkly colours all over!! they're back in the kiln for glaze firing now so i'll have loads for market...

and these guys i just love so much the rustic nature the cobalt dash of texture and a little splash of colour too, it will be interesting to see how they go down this month at market too..well that's my day including some clay pugging
this afternoon nearly lost a tool in the machine as i was trying to clear some old clay left to dry in it and was grabbed by the thing.. luckily the off switch is handy and yes it shouldn't have been running while i was poking around in it trying to get things moving....all good though both machine and i survived the encounter...!!

all good things...

who'd deco in this heat??...

mwa!!!

nearly done another shelf load later when the sun's run away!!!.....and progress report on that other job later too...stay cool or warm wherever you are...

ta daaaaa!!

ta daaaa!! firstly mmm lunch and the lovely new mug from margaret brampton with some yummy tea...

and mud checking out whats going on up the garden that or checking out the rustling in the vine, could be a mouse or a lizard but they went to ground so no action there..

and the big mystery unveiling, ahh a lovely slab of concrete that survived the heat so far and last nights effort 2 posts in ready for some shade and pergola extension...yay!!

and now for something completely different....

ahh progress...yesterday was none too hot about 33C so i got a lotta diggin done...cleared the space as best i could..who put those pipes there!! it looks small here (about 1 meter x 700mm x 75mm) and dug a couple of post holes for the pergola to go over, the lemon tree is going to have to share some sky space with a beam going right through the centre.. she'll be right!! ended up concreting last night as its heating up towards the weekend and that would be just nuts to hope for no cracks...

anyhoo pics of the unveiling tonight hopefully, that is a bit of a hot spot in the corner and hence the need for shade and dont ask why its taken me 3 years to get done...after this there will be a spot of fence reno and some bamboo screens to go up too should be lovely and a section for mozaic me thinks would be nice.. well back to making some pots today and awaiting the work rush of next week!!

awwww lovely!!....

i happened to be at the end of my driveway the other day and heard him coming on his scooter, nothing else sounds like the posties scooter…! so i waited and asked when he arrived do you have anything for me??… have you been good??? he replied…..

well turns out i have...secret santa just arrived.....

awwww lovely!!....

thankyou margaret brampton what a lovely parcel and spoilt again!! a super mug with hunting scenes i think that or MB has a fox in her back garden pinching the chooks,.. and a stunning lil bowl with feather deco and the respective names of the birds around the rim..just too sweet mmm what to christen them with i'll ponder that for the rest of today that has turned out very nice and not sweltering at all, ahhh just lovely all round!!

breakin out the plackie...

hey its 'summer time and the weather is fine you can stretch right up and touch the sky'......


and warming up time it is.. end of this week we'll hit 40C again so i'm thinking i'll not make anything that needs apendages this week they just crack and everything is on a speedy drying cycle... i'll get the rest of these guys trimmed and compressed tomorrow and then onto clearing the pool filter space and concreting a slab, the joint that goes into the filter keeps leaking and as it's on pavers only it needs securing more and hopefully that will fix the movement issue...well why not it will only be 36C thursday and i reckon it will take most of tomorrow to clear the filter and shore up the slab and inset some mesh!!

what fun! where's a handy bloke when ya need one??

ahh and my trusty trolley all plackied up!

happy b'day rose!!..

and a big happy birthday rosa!!! we celebrated yesterday in roses massive studio space which she shares with husband michael and sorry mike your lovely wood working machinery makes great bar tables... it make look like 'mobile mum' (she's sitting on one of those wheely walkers)...had had enough at this point but she was just waiting for rose to cut her cake...with lots of cheering around don't touch the bottom make a wish and blow out the candles before they melt all over the cake....we all loved your speedy speech and romper room recognition of all your buds and family that came out to celebrate...! her lovely girls are in the pics assisting the mega cake cutting..

have a nice relaxing day today and see ya soon for mold making day, i do wish i'd taken a shot of lil sumo man that rose is going to make a mold of he's fascinating , oh well another day for that one...happy birdies!!

happy new bang!!...

happy new year everybody...i took a drive down to glenelg beach last night to visit my friends franci & theo thanks so much it was a lovely time and not too blowie after the wind died down..it was a stinker yesterday 42C and then the change came in but it didnt last to long and turned out to be a lovely evening, listening to more 'live' music that we all know the words to, there's a lil debate about ac/dc song 'it's a long way to the top' as to whether the lyrics should be sausage roll or chiko roll though!! and just as the fireworks went off the lifeguards did a noodie run into the sea with more cheers than the mayor of holdfast shores got for his new years speach....you can just see the lifeguards hut the lil yellow thing bottom left of the beach shot...

and below my reminder pic of where i left my car...it was a wee hike as parking is very short down there... anyhoo hope you all have some super plans for this year and i hope we continue to meet online and in the 'real world' for now there's secret santa who seems to be holding on tightly to the pressies this year.... cheers ang..