time wasting...

while waiting for my bisque fire to finish today, the red tile tests are in there along with some kiln filler slump plates, so i thought i'd take you on a tour...

our well sized clubroom space is slowly filling with all manner of treats from friendly potters, 'new' shelvage, wheels, tools, bats abound, and a great stash of ware boards which i'm putting to good use....

I was having a chat with a guy from the theatre group in our shared shed compound on saturday and he was admiring the good use the palm trees were getting, apparently many hours of construction and paintwork were being tossed out a couple of years ago by a zealous cleanup team in their shed and we scored!! nothing like a couple of palm trees to brighten up the place....

a few outer shots of the changing scenery too, there really wasn't much around us for years and we're still on the outskirts of suburbia but we'll have new neighbours soon across the paddock with a new housing development including a retirement village.

there's a proposed shopping centre too on the corner of our road, the footy club's clubhouse is coming along and soon their move will be on also.... that's the pic with the trucks....

grandpa stamp

After  chatting with Cynthia about 'chops' - i thought a post about my grandpa stamp was in order....

My family emigrated to Oz when I was 6 years old so grandparents weren't a big part of our lives here so my reference point apart from fuzzy memories were old black and white photos of which we have a good collection of happy family snaps, there's something about that quality of photo that is endeering just by itself, this image is of my grandad sitting on a wooden crate in the doorway of the greenhouse... anyhoo when it came time to do concept work at college wacky family stories just jumped out for me, my grandfather was quite a character and always up to something comical. So instead of being political or environmentally conscious my studio work became about childhood stories of dinner time and vintage car stories. I remember well the old black morris 1000 my grandparents had, one of the tales goes like this.....

Following us on the motorway in his black morris 1000 he decided not to use the headlights, arthur wanted to save the battery....

A few of those stories i still use on my vintage car plates, and the stamp, well i have 2  one's at the club and one at home studio,  i developed the stamp a little later it's become something i use for decoration and to mark my work, I also sign the back of all pots and sometimes the front of tile work where it is more illustrative than form work...oh and the skull is from pirate nite 07 at the club, i usually make some beakers to celebrate the year for our dinner, have a search through my back posts you'll find some amazing pics from our  annual doo..

So following are some illustrations of that and the stamp themselves that are made out of plaster and hand carved fairly deeply, any excess plaster from mold making i pour into holes made by pushing a stick into a lump of clay and vwalla! instant surfaces to carve into later. It's easy to form the end shape by rubbing the plaster a bit on some rough concrete creating bevelled edges or curved shapes... so there you have it a little history about the mark i use often.... the tile is from a wacky glaze called perfect purple- the same glaze is on the barrel - it's is a bit illusive! but i love the intermittent reduction firing i really have to work for it....

working inside....

I'm working inside today just getting the pattern organised for the tile process, rolled back the rug and cranked up the air!! It's 40degC now heading for 43degC today that's usually around 3pm, so guess who has to go out to work at 2pm !!..

The pieces all get numbered and flipped on monday tuesday is my aim when the temperature breaks next week, so i'm just doing prep work inside today..

The red tests are ready for the kiln so aiming to get plates done, I may do them tonight when the shed's not so hot... really just making kiln fillers and playing with drawings at the same time, a little extension on the tea party theme and the white rabbit i think...they were received well at the last market which is always lovely to get such a positive response to new experimental work...

Heatwave 2009!

Anna just sent me these pics, good for a chuckle...I saw one the other day of a baby koala under someone's verandah having a drink out of a bucket and in the following shots sitting in it.....well why not it's stinking hot out there...

quite possibly melting..

well not much happening this week gone as a high weather system sitting over the eastern states has us at bay! how rude...  i quite possibly have melted several times this week getting in and out of a blue car in this heat is like stepping into a kiln pre heat cycle.. well enough whinging!

lots happening this week i hope, my tracing paper finally came in re pattern making for the table, and now that the pug mill shop is open i was able to grab some more base reds and can finally get on with last colour testing...yey!!

 i'm still on the hunt re silkscreen photo emulsion and what product i want to use, i have a choice of 2 here in the city and really am trying to research the best possible environmental choice.. .it will be all systems go with tile printing as soon as this gets sorted, i must say its so much fun drawing straight onto clay so i'll probably combine the printed image, with bright glazing too...

i just popped up into my roasting studio looking for something mildly interesting to post and remembered fishy table it just needs the tiles cementing on the edges and vwalla!!