Work station, clay pots and soap dishes. Greenware

My clay working time is now limited to 2 afternoons a week (and anything I can fit in over the weekend)
 My extra day in school has meant that I have to be more efficient with my time now and will probably mean a decline in how much work I can produce for my shops, so I have set all my larger items as "made to order" which I get on with over the course of the week and try to make a few new little things while I have the clay out on the bench.

I have had orders for my bird feeders and whilst waiting for them to dry a bit and work on again I have made these porky little planters.

These ones have an oval opening at the top with an overall oval shape to them and
the ones below are rounded with a rounded opening.

I love making these, they are perfect hand sized and it is good to be free with the clay and stamp
it with hessian, and my other tools. The grit you see on the sides is called "grog" which is ground
fired ceramic grit which will fire into the clay giving it a course texture. I like it.

I made this one last year. It has multiple layers of glaze and
oxide and has had a few firings.

Soap dishes ready for bisque firing.

These ones came from the last long Glaze firing.

Broken Week

Last week was the Mother of all weeks!

So glad its over and a new week has begun. My week began with a car accident on the way home from  picking up my boys from school run. I was hit and shaken about, glass everywhere, the boys and I walked away with not a scratch though. 

So thats all I take away from this experience, the thought of what could have happened to us and just leave it at that.

The car however is wrecked!

My second part of this rubbish week is this irritation!

  I hate this! This is greenware, at the point of
loading into the kiln, one of my textured planters just cracked straight down its joining seem.I think it was just too cold to be putting things into the kiln, everything seemed so much more fragile.After a few more chips and snaps on this particular occasion I retreated to safer pursuits and a few choice words. 

So I waited for a warmer day, got the job done, loaded up the "Big Boy" with loads of
 wall pockets and bird feeders all safe and sound away from my cursed hands!  Fired the same night and next day. Its all gone ok too, nothing broken. 

I will post some pics next timexx

Art Tech Display

This is my latest board in the school. A mood board.
It hangs outside the Art rooms, which was previously bare.

 I have incorporated a Year 11 G.C.S.E students  Art work into my board and also included some scanned pages from the inspirational book by Sibella Court "etc.".

Images and texts are printed onto vellum paper, wallpapers and any scraps of interesting 

papers I could find laying around in the Art rooms.

Some of my favourite pages from "ect."

Deep Deep Concentration. These are my kiddo's

Its half term, the children's break and mine too if they allow it. 

I always try to get them to unwind and just keep themselves busy for at least two "stay at home days" this invariably includes the usual distractions, garden, Lego, Xbox, reading, (baking, not me!) and with some encouragement something creative usually goes on, although as they get older they know what they want to do, so I try to just let them get on with it.

Ned is making tiny toadstools and acorns from a buff clay, he has decided he only likes the smooth stuff now and won't touch anything that has a coarse grog in it.
 He knows what he likes.
Just look at the concentration!
He makes lovely things but just won't go to it enough, I really have to temp him, then he just gets in the "zone" and he's there for an age, making away with his tiny fingers.

Noah's not so keen on the aftermath of using clay, partly because it means he's going to have to wash his hands at some point, less he does that the better for him, he thinks, grubby littlest one!
He uses fimo clay and spends most of the time warming it up in his hands.
 He is making germs, yes you read it right! germs, the microscopic ones that look quite beautiful under a microscope. There is a photo of them a few pics down.

He is making the lined underside of the mushroom with an old iTunes card.
Yep, hes been watching his mother!

One of Neds acorns.

His little germs are just below the box

Molly doing homework based on Hunterwasser. Line drawings using pencil 
then black liner over the top.

Molly's in the "zone"

She reminds me so much of myself when I was little, I always worked on the floor,
never  at a table, always under one,
and I always used my knees as a rest for whatever I was doing and still in my PJ's as she is.

Low Winter Sun and rough edges at my Work station

A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I had brought some clay inside as it was just too cold to go in the workshop and the clay had just frozen in the bags making it impossible to cut any off.
 So I set up a little nook inside, in the warm where I have a few boards, tools and have been making small things with a new porcelain white earthstone clay, which I have to say I have already fallen for as it is so very nice to make things from.

These little heart cubes are going to be attached to the lids of the tiny
 kraft boxes I have started using with my smaller bowls and jewellery
pieces.
There is a photo at the bottom of this post of boxes they will be displayed on.

Here is one of my You & Me.. bowls with the lettering just finished.
I like the rough edges at this stage but just can't live with them so they all get
refined and smoothed off at the next stage.

I like the colour of these photos, I have been working at tea time and the
low winter sun has given my photos a warm sepia glow, I will have to remember to take photos around this time again, it makes a change from the cool blue light so typical of England.

These little hearts are quite solid and I have used a vintage button and pressed it into
 these hearts with some lace. They are a nice little size and good for valentines gifts,
I will be presenting them in the little boxes. I have used oxides on the pattern, infact
they are firing now I hope they turn out ok.

Note to self...

Bye!
Im going to make some extra effort to blog more about my staged
projects and my display boards I am working on at school. Ive been involved with
boards for Drama and Music department and am going to get some pics of the boards to
show you just as soon as they are finished.