More flower bowls

I'm working on a range of shapes and sizes of bowls on which I can add flowers. Here are the latest additions. Next up will be jewellery dishes.

My favourite is the first one. I'm unsure about the last two.

Penni Q Original

I admired this dish so much when our club set up the stall at the market on Easter Saturday that I decided I had to have it for myself. It is by Renae from Penni Q Pottery. You can find her in all the usual social media places. She has some mesmerising videos on facebook. (Not that I do facebook!) Renae used coloured slip on this which is something I hope to try one day.

It is 24 cm across and the photos really don't do it justice. It's one of those stunning pieces that you regret later if you don't purchase it.

Glaze experimenting

After the surprising glaze results when Amy from the pottery club put satin white over the top of tenmoku and produced the leopard print, I have been wanting to try a few other things. Here is the next result which is lavender over the top of tenmoku, drizzled over with an eyedropper. It gave a sort of bronze effect, except for the inside where it pooled at the bottom and showed the lavender in an almost metallic look.

Expect more in the weeks ahead.

It isn't about making a sale

Well that's what I keep telling myself. Yes our club had it's first market stall on Easter Saturday. It was a success. We sold around 30 items in the four hours we were open for business. I only had three items I felt were good enough to sell. The other members involved had a lot more pieces up for sale and I was excited to see many of their creations get sold. Yes I did sell two of my three items. But they were purchased by people who knew me in the last minutes of the market. It's not the same as unknown people loving my work so much that they want to pay money for it and take it home. I think there will be another opportunity in three months time. I will have more quantity and more variety. It was a great experience to work together with the other members of the club to promote our club. I am disappointed I didn't properly sell anything. But as I told my cousin who travelled all the way here from Melbourne to compete in the drag racing last night only to drop out due to a radiator problem...there's always next time.

Finished bird bowls

Out of the kiln this week...

The pottery club will be having a stall on Easter Saturday. I'm happy enough with my bowls now to actually put some up for sale. I'm going to put up these two plus the cockatiel bowl which should come out of the kiln this week.

Mixed bag

A variety of finished and unfinished projects to showcase. First up, a new necklace with a leaf...

Then the experimental bowls which all began with me accidentally poking a hole in a freshly turned bowl and having to decide what to do with it...

I really like the one with the flowers, which was the one I put my finger through. There are a number of flaws with the other bowl. It is too thick at the base and doesn't look so great inside, as the little circles I inserted don't sit perfectly due to the cut out circles in the bowl being narrow at the top and thick at the lower part. If that makes sense.
Finally, an unfired item I'm super happy with...

I think it must be the biggest bowl I've thrown yet, great shape, not too heavy. And I've managed to create a parrot that is much more in proportion than anything I've attempted before. Call it a cockatiel if you like. That's what I was aiming for. I find I have much more success by looking at a cartoon character of a bird than by looking at my actual real life birds. My goal is to come up with the "idea" of an animal rather than getting all the details into the clay.

Improvements

Ron Philbeck's cute little birds on some of his work inspired me to get back into putting birds on my bowls. These bowls are much improved from the bowls I was making when I added birds previously. I am so happy with the shape and they are even lighter in weight, especially the base which is often too heavy. The custom made wooden rib tools by Troy Bungart make shaping the inside of the bowls a delight. And Jayne's guidance in turning the edge of the base has done wonders for the outside of the bowl. A bit of underglaze on the birds and into the kiln next week!