Decoration on porcelain cups

Hello everyone. It was a quiet Sunday. I am still having aches from yesterday's printing workshop. Only strenuous thing I have done was walking dogs!  You might laugh, but our Pearl walks like this when she thinks there is a cat around! I am pulled along, quite often!

'I am a girl trapped in a dog's body'

Mike was busy vacuuming the house. I have taken photographs of my wall masks for my shop at Etsy, as well as presentation I will give next month. Then I did finishing on my porcelain cups and Mike's bowl.

Left and middle are my cups.  The bowl is Mike's 

I am not sure how yellow and blue underglaze will come out on the cup in the middle, so I chose tested black and red on other two. The bowl has also decoration inside. We will glaze them tomorrow and will fire them sometime this week.

Inside decoration

Mike threw two large dishes on a potter's wheel yesterday. He was turning and trimming them this evening. Mike likes making bowls; he is good at it. Jane, the ceramic studio technician, is a fan of his bowls. She already has three of his bowls. She told him that she would like to buy one of his large bowls or chargers. That's nice!

They are ready for turning. 

New start in autumn

Hello everyone. I returned to my day 'job' today. My brain is still in 'whole day ceramics' mode. So, I have struggled to concentrate on work. How do I persuade the brain?  I think the brain is similar to a muscle. I can train it. I force it to use the logical part, and then it will start working properly again after some days. I have heard a pianist saying if she take a day off from practicing, she would need three days to catch up. My brain is just like that.

During the summer vacation, I have listed lots of my ceramics on Etsy and eBay, read and learned from good advice on Etsy, made my business cards (I haven't showed you yet, have I?), bought boxes for shipping, taken commissioned orders and made thank you cards. It was fun!

Today, I received a letter from Canterbury Christ Church University where I am going to start a part-time postgraduate course in Fine Art and Applied Art in October. I have waited for this letter. It says that the MA  course will be on and I need to go to registration next week. Hooray! Now I am going to apply for a professional and career development loan. I have just requested paper bank statements from my bank. As soon as they arrive, I will send an application form to the bank. If it is accepted, this should help me funding the course fee. Once the course finishes in two years time, I will repay the loan. I am hoping that I can raise the most of the fees from my sales.

So, from now on, I will start adjusting our furred and feathered family for my part-time student life. I will be busier than now, and I am already busy. I know our guys (parrots, dogs, finch and chicken) will be able to adjust although they may not like the change at first.

I have muttered about myself too much. Now I will show you our recent collaborated pieces. Mike throws them on the wheel, and I drew the rabbits. They are a Japanese rabbit motif.  We both like them a lot. We also made three bowls with rabbits and some plants, but the clear glaze became lumpy inside. It was bitterly disappointing. We hope we can add some flux to make it smoother and then refire them again
 

Mug for strong strong coffee like cappuccino

Tea cup size

    
That's it today. I have injured my finger tips while I was husking hazel nuts today. So I can't do clay work tonight. I will take shower and go to sleep ( and have a nice dream, I hope ). Good night, everyone! See you soon! 

Our first bisque firing, gorgeous lemon pie and Mike's socks

Hello, everyone. We have had a fabulous long weekend. Last Friday we went to Grove ferry to do birdwatching in the morning. Water looked blue; it is rare for the water there to look that blue! In the afternoon, Mike threw some pots on a wheel, and I made some chameleons. In the early evening, we went to private view for Canterbury Christ Church University Art department graduate show. It was such a fun day!

On both Saturday and Sunday, I was busy making chameleons and sheep. I was on a roll. I could not stop making them. 

I will write about them later in the week, because today I like to tell you about our first real firing. This morning, Mike switched on our kiln at 5:30.

Parts of our ceramics to be bisque fired

Ready for firing.

We are going to open the kiln tomorrow morning. Mike says it is like opening Christmas presents. I thought I would rather unload it in a daylight, as our kiln is in a garage. I hope everyone is safe and there is no casualty. Our fingers and paws crossed!



Mike baked a fabulous lemon meringue pie Sunday morning while I was asleep. So when I finally woke up, our house was filled with lovely lemon smell! Ahhhh! I love the citrus smell! I love a lemon meringue pie! This is my most favourite pie in the world. It goes very well with Darjeeling tea.  

Mike's lemon meringue pie with Pumpkin's egg

Sadly, we can't eat it until it becomes cool. We usually cheat with other types of cakes, but not this one. It MUST be cool.

We had it at lunch time.

I was patient. So, reward was 100 times better. I have already finished all, by the way. LOL I am waiting for the next one to be baked!

At lunch time, Mike came to me with an amused look in his face. ??? He pointed at his socks. He had spent a half day with these unmatched socks. Bless him!

Yes, they are grey, but....

 

Mike's pots I like

Hi everyone! We have had a mild day, and even sunny in the afternoon. My mother in Japan told me that it was snowing heavily there. Once a while It's not bad to hear Tokyo is colder than here.

Today I am going to show some of Mike's pots. He likes making bowls. Jane, the former tutor of our ceramic course always said that his bowls are pleasure to handle. This one is a really nice bowl that is not repeatable. It was a chance in the kiln.

Inside has greyish brown little dots appeared.

Inside became slightly warmer cream colour

Isn't it beautiful? The greyish brown dots don't make a full circle. Being Japanese, I love asymmetry; it is a spirit of 'Zen'. This is my favourite bowl among his works. Needless to say he threw it well on the wheel, too. 

  

Green 'Oribe' glaze ran beautifully.

This bowl and his other works are for sale on ebay right now.


This small egg vase is another of my favourite of his works. He made it years ago, and we have displayed it on a shelf. But this is also on ebay too. We sell our works, even favourite ones, so we make space literally and also in our mind to create something new.

P.S. Now it went to a loving home.

   

Mike's sweet demitasse cups with my handles

Hi everyone! As I promised yesterday, I took several pictures of our new pots. Tonight I will share Mike's sweet demitasse cups. They are tiny, a size of egg cups. Perfect for espresso. As usual, I made handles.

Egg cup size - Demitasse cups by Mike

This white cup with a blue handle is made from porcelain white stone. White glaze looks great on white body, so I thought it was worth testing colours. I think it looks good. This is also a demitasse cup. It seems to me that temperature went up a bit higher than usual. White glaze ran a bit.

New colour test on new clay