Commissioned work and a birthday present for Mimi

Hello, everyone! Today I made a prototype for commissioned works, a pair of small delicate detailed pieces. I love to work for commissioned works because it gives me challenges. I always learn something I didn't know by making something new. It is also thrilling to create something I have never made, or even better, something which doesn't exist in the world yet.

The process is quite long. I gather technical data such as the shrinkage of clay, the suitability of glaze to particular clay, glaze tests. Then I will sketch. Once I am happy with basic design, I will make a prototype. This prototype goes through every process to the end., that is, bisque-firing, decorating, glaze-firing, enamelling, enamel-firing, and assembling if required. I will watch the prototype very carefully at each stage to search for any possible flaws. Then if it goes well, it means technical side is fine. I will show the finished prototype to a client. If she is happy with it, I will make final pieces. If not, I will go back to a design process to adjust design. When a client is happy with it, I will make final pieces, and will go through whole process again. It would take about five to eight weeks to finish. I hope this one goes well. Once the pieces are delivered in late September, I will show you the photo of them.

Yesterday was Mimi's, my friend in Japan, birthday. I asked another friend and her if they want a mascot from the Olympics before we went to see wrestling.  Mimi wanted Wenlock. So, I bought him and posted him next day so that she could receive the packet before her birthday.

Wenlock with two gold medals that I made from royal mail 1st class stamp sheet! : )

Did you notice something on Wenlock? Yes, he has got two gold medals!! I made them. Mike and I went to see female wrestling, in which two Japanese won golds. All Japanese were elated on that day. Mimi twittered that she spotted us on TV from Japan. So That's why Wenlock won two gold medals. It's our memory of the day. I also included an Olympic ticket for wrestling and a special Olympic London travel card to share our excitement with her.

She went to Hakone, a famous hot spring, on her birthday. She said she was too excited in a swimming pool, and cracked her toe! Poor Mimi. I hope Wenlock comforts her a bit. By the way, my other friend decliend my offer to send her a mascot. She said 'They look spooky!'. Umm, I understand. But if she saw the cute bottom of Wenlock, she might have changed her mind. He has a pointed pyramid shaped bottom. Uh? I could almost hear someone saying,' It's spooky!'.    

Our first experience of wrestling - the Olympics 2012

Hello everyone. Today I have spent about seven hours decorating and glazing my ceramic sculpture in the garage. It's dark and a bit chilly (yes, English garage can be chilly even in mid-summer!) I bent down at awkward angle and got back aches. It was totally outside of 'health and safety' guidelines. I should improve working conditions, as I spend several hours in the garage every weekend. We will fire the kiln tomorrow morning, and will be able to open it on Monday. I hope they all will go well. There is one tricky one, a large chameleon with dodgy legs. My fingers are crossed for him!

Here I am going to report our second Olympic experience at eXcel.  Last Wednesday, we went to see women's free style wrestling. We chose this event because I knew Japanese women won gold medals in previous Olympics, and they have been very dominant.

We started our day with good news. One of the packets I sent Monday the week before was finally delivered. The Olympics seemed to have caused the delay, as the packet was for east London. We were so glad to hear the news!

We took our train and changed to Dockland light railway at Stratford International. We have never used DLR before. After about 11 minutes, we finally arrived at Custom house. There we found a half of Irish population! Green, green and green. Irish people at all ages in green clothes. Mike told me that there would be Irish boxer's match.  

eXcel entrance

Excel is huge. We were told to go to venue 10. We passed taekwondo, table tennis and boxing. We finally reached wrestling. Most Irish disappeared into boxing venue. Most Japanese went into wrestling.  

Japanese supporters and Irish supporters

We had good seats. The fourth row in front of ring A. There are three rings in the venue. In front of Mike, there was an American man who told us that the first two rows were occupied by the family of an American wrestler and that he bought a bundle of tickets.

Mike started having sandwiches as soon as he settled down. (We had already had sushi lunch in the train before we got here) I took photos and decided to do some warming up. I was a just spectator, but I was getting into the sport! As soon as the matches started, I gave the camera to Mike, and totally absorbed in them.

Happy Mike eating sandwiches.

I had never seen wrestling before even on TV. So imagine my surprise when I saw the rings were literally rings. They were round. They looked also so small. I remember my father watching pro-wrestling on TV when I was child. I remember very well that the ring was square and ropes around it.

There were three matches on three rings simultaneously. We watched one in front of us, at ring A, unless, of course, Japanese was fighting somewhere else. Here is Japanese wrestler, Obara. She was quick.

Japanese wrestler, Obara.

Obara's supporters. 

 There were two categories on that day. 48kg and 63 kg. Obara was in 48kg, and Icho was in 63 kg. Icho was super quick. Her fight was beautiful. There was no waste in her movement. I soon became her fan.

This fight was against Canadian. Both Japanese supporters and Canadian supporters were very loud. The whole place became so noisy. There was a young female Canadian supporter behind us. She had incredibly loud voice, not dissimilar to a foghorn! 

Kaori Icho, gold medalist in Athens and Beijing 

 Both Japanese went to quarter finals. Yeah!  From quarterfinals all fights were held in the ring B.

Obara pinning down Senegal woman. 

Icho against Swedish 

 Now both girls were in Semifinal. I was on the edge of the seat. The Russian guy near us kept begin given warnings from attendants because he didn't sit down, instead he had been on foot. That was a bit distracting.

Obara. if she wins, she would go to final....

  Obara won! I made as much as noise I could, but not much. lol

Icho at semi. She is steady and very quick. 

 Icho also won, too. My girls both went to finals! I was so happy. We would have to go back to see finals on TV.

Icho after her victory. 

There is nothing much around eXcel, so we went back to Stratford straight way. We had coffee and cakes with WiFi at Westfield. Then I found the message from my friend, Mimi, in Japan, in twitter. She said ' I spotted Mike and you on TV at Icho's match!'. I burst into laughing. I told Mike about her message. He also laughed, too.  Mimi was determined to find us on TV as soon as I told her we bought tickets. She really found us! I hope she enjoyed watching the match, too!

After a bit of shopping (I found very nice Middle Eastern confectionery), we headed back home. Here is the view from Stratford International. You can see the Olympic village where athletes stay.

Austrian flags on Olympic village. 

Stratford station

 
Once we were back home, we watched finals. Both Japanese girls won gold! What a day! I was ecstatic! Then, we checked our appearance on TV on streaming. Yes, we spotted Mike eating sandwiches and  me doing stretching before the matches at an introductory part. We were in the camera line, so we repeatedly appeared here and there. So funny! There was no one in front of my seat for the most of the time. So from the camera angle, Mike's face was clearly on TV.  He looked handsome and young.  So did I. We both looked 10 years younger!

Short report on our experience in the Olympic Park

Hello, everyone. Mike and I went to see synchronized swimming yesterday. It is our first Olympics to visit, so we were naturally excited. Before getting into the Olympic park, we went to Westfield, a large shopping centre next to the Olympic park. There were off-duty soldiers in uniform, athletes in their countries' uniforms as well as lots of visitors. I was excited to see athletes and officials in their uniforms at first, but there were so many of them, I became used to their existence quickly.

Entrance

 After cakes and espresso with Wifi (I sent several messages to Japan) , we headed for the Olympic park. Before too long, we got lost. Mike said I got lost, and I said he got lost. I even didn't know he was not with me for some time. I looked back to ask which way we should take, there were hundreds of strangers, instead of Mike! ??? I rang him. We could hardly hear each other because of the noise. After reunion, the first thing he said was that my mobile was not on, so he could not ring me. Hahaha, sorry.

We were reunited at the foot of this tower. 

We thought the tower was ugly when we sat it on TV. But when we saw it in person, it overpowered us by its size. It is huge. But, it is still not pretty.

We pretended to be Olympians. Bolt

Are you cyclist, Mike?

We loved the English meadows. There were lots of flowers.

After looking at a shop, we headed for Aquatics Centre. Look at the cloud. Dramatic!

This is Aquatics Centre that Balfour Beatty built. 

It started at 15:00 ( There was competitors being photographed in front of five rings)

Competitors were warming up.

  We got in early. Inside was humid and warm, so we went out to the balcony for breeze.

A view of the Tower and the Stadium from Aquatic centre 

A view of the bridge and the stadium from Aquatic centre

 When we came back, the centre was filled with people. I spotted Japanese supporters. I was a bit jealous of them. They had good seats close to the pool.

Japanese supporters. 

 Because ours were in the 30th row. But we could seem them much better than we had imagined. I was glad we didn't take our binoculars with us!

Our seats were in the 30th row. Surprisingly we could see well. 

 When British pair appeared people roared. It was deafening. It is so nice to be a home team. I applauded my Japanese pair, of course. They did very well, and were ranked at 5th.

British pair taken by  Mike

    

Olympics and firing

Hello everyone. Mike and I had watched Olympics on TV to the hearts' content in the weekend. We enjoyed judo and archery. By Sunday we suddenly became semi-experts on them! I started practicing Judo on Mike. He obligatory falls with a funny expression. That makes me laugh. My father gave me a half an hour Judo lesson when I was about 8. Since then, I have never done anything, but, boy, I or my body, to be exact, remembered! We don't do sports, but sports are fun and addictive. Just like music, it is in our instinct.

On Saturday, I vacuumed the lounge where we watched TV, three times; partly guilty and partly too much dog hair spotted on the floor. But Sunday, I had been completely hooked on the sports, so kept watching on TV as well as PC. But, we had planned to do glazing, so in the afternoon, we did glazing in the garage. It took me five hours to glaze everything. When we filled the kiln, it was already 10 o'clock at night, and temperature was 12C, which is 54F. Chilled and knackered. We went to bed straight away.

Commissioned work. He is travelling to US.

Today, I posted the white rabbit and a chameleon commissioned for a American lady to the post office. After that, I intended to work normally, but couldn't. I split one of two PC screens on my desk to three, and streamed judo, archery and swimming. I tried to work on the other screen. It was very difficult to concentrate. Japan had a good day on Olympics. We got our first gold, and added two silvers and three bronzes. Yeah! Team GB also did very well on gymnastics, hockey and other sports.

I only wish I could take two weeks off now, but there are so many important economic data coming up this week, and company announcements next week, I must keep up with the news. It's shame. After the closing ceremony, I will be off four weeks. I will spend on making more ceramics. From October I will be a postgraduate and would not have spare time to make for my shop. Besides, we aim to use solar energy to power the kiln, so we should do many firings during summer although English sunshine is elusive even in mid-summer.

Tomorrow morning, I will wake up a bit early, run to the garage and will open the kiln. It will be exciting! I hope everything comes out alright.

Olympic torch came to Canterbury.

Hello, everyone! I have lots of photos to share with you today, the torch came to Canterbury. I walked up to the city centre, and enjoyed the atmosphere. It was absolutely fantastic! Lots of foreign kids, I guess school trips from France, language school students, tourists and locals were there to witness a once in a lifetime moment. These photos tell all.

First, police patrol the street. The cathedral is in the background.

Colourful people marched down the street before the torch.

She is one of relay runners. 

People in grey are security. Can you see a red thing on top of the building on the right side? That's a baby lifted by a parent.

A man in white is a torch bearer.

He is walking.

Green balloons are from Lloyds TSB.  

Here he comes!

Cool!

Just after here, he started running. 

That's it. 

There were street performers here

and there,.