My painting table, spring flowers and Pearl met a tiger!

Hello everyone. It is so nice to finish all my work before dark on a Friday! I have glazed and loaded the kiln full, and even had a tidy up of my studio space! Ah, lovely!

The last three days, I have concentrated on glazing and painting bisque-fired figures. This has somehow made me hungry for high calorie food. I am a bit concerned if I am going to be a piglet at this rate!

I have three tables for my ceramics. One is for making, another is for painting bisques; they are in my studio. The third one is for packing  in my office.

My painting table has had these ones. A view of my painting table - yesterday.

Rolling heads!

The hair of this boy might become blotchy because I didn't mix enough colour at one go. I was making the colour under artificial light at night, so I couldn't tell the nuance of the shades. I guess he would need at least a second firing.

They will be in my Etsy shop, if they come out fine. 

This is how the heads were held.

This afternoon, I started loading the kiln.

The lower shelf

The top shelf

I hope they will come out fine. The kiln will be opened on Sunday morning.

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In our garden, there are so many flowers at this moment. I can finally enjoy them this weekend. We will put the garden furniture out.

Oriental poppies -very early!

Lily-flowered tulips. 

Our eating cherry have lots of flowers! But birds will have most fruits! :D

This afternoon, I took Pearl the whippet for an ordinary walk around four blocks. At the farthest end, we were chased by a tom cat! Pearl became bonkers, and started barking at him. The cat made himself large by arching and putting all fur spread, and chased us! I ran away as I dragged Pearl who was ready to fight. Then when I looked back, the cat was behind us, still chasing us! And when I hurriedly crossed the road, he came to the closest corner of the other side, and did a wee! I picked up Pearl and held her as if she were a child (heavy and cumbersome with those long legs) and whispered her 'Don't make a mistake. That's not a cat, it is a tiger!' 

Bluebells near us

 Have a great weekend!

Creation and destruction

It has been a strange week. Creation and destruction are going together in my studio.

Today I did bisque-firing. Before loading yesterday I had to do mock-up to make sure that it all will fit.

15 minutes of puzzling.

 They are all tall pieces, except for this important being, Ice Baby.

Ice Baby

The female figure is as high as I dare to make. There is no much space above her in my small kiln.  That's why I have to make heads and bodies separately!

This it one of the tightest loading ever.

Regarding destruction, I have removed ears and hair from the rabbit head. She returned to a round head. I decided to fire her as it is.

Over the last few days, I have made five heads, and destroyed two of them. And one became a small mask. Something is not right, and I can't get into the groove.

She will be fired as a mask.

Despite my frustration, dogs are lazy and happy. It has turned chilly, so they don't want to get out of their beds. Pearl has never been early riser. Look at her. :D

I don't like cold.

Tomorrow morning, I will see if all is fine in the kiln.
 

In the studio

Hello everyone.  The bisque-firing was successful. I became so nervous to carry the storm head from the garage, aka the kiln room, to inside. I held my breath. That exhausted me!

Storm

One of the strands of hair seems a bit loose! I am hoping it will be fixed with glaze.

All others were intact, luckily.

These three whippets are commissioned. They came through fine, too. 

Today, I built a torso for a young faun. I somehow built a well-built mature man's figure, which would be more suitable for a rugby player than a young faun. With a thick chest and six pack!" What was I thinking? I had to shave most muscle and to pat it to rounder shape.

After shave - front

I changed square shoulders and bottom round. I had to shave off kilos of muscles! Mike suggested that I should start from a scratch, and/or make a new head for the torso. Not a nice suggestion when I don't have too much time at hand.

After shave - backside

After reshaping it, I added a goat tail. Then suddenly he looks like a faun! Sorry no photo today. 

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Do you remember that I made a trio of little animals over Christmas holiday? They finally finished. They were quickly snapped up within hours of their debut. So nobody has seen them together. Here is the photo.

Little lamb, goat and bunny

 And the last but not the least! Today's Pearl. It was windy today! She was happy to have a coat on. 

 And bendy Topaz.

Work in progress and beach walk

Hello everyone. It was a wonderfully warm day for early March. 17C, which is 64F. We went to the beach with our dogs late morning. But to start with I will share a couple of photos from my studio, with you.

Large round bird body

 Friday, I made this bird body. I made it in two parts and joined them .

Top

Last night I made these three whippets. They are the last commissioned whippets until July. They will be Bronze-gold.

The last two bronze gold whippets are gone now.  A larger one is almost gold-bronze.

Whippet - sold

The lady who bought the another bronze-gold pair sent me a wonderful message. She has brindle lurchers, and my little whippets look like them. She said people think that she would have them commissioned. How lovely!

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Our beach walk

Suddenly Whitstable is the centre of the universe.

We usually go to beach before 10 on the first warm days of the year because people would drive down from London and North Kent later, and it would be crowded. But today, we were a bit late, and the road to Whitstable was already jammed. So we went to Seasalter, the next beach along from Whitstable.

Seasalter

It was peaceful. We walked along the beach until we were tired. By the time we were leaving, there were more cars parked, and more people were coming.


Topaz and her shadow.

They found a lots of smelly things!

And one dog ate something bad, dead shellfish, we think, and the other didn't. 

You can tell from their ears which ate bad shellfish. 

We have collected pretty stones and a tiny shell. 

Each has its own story to tell.

A new female figure

Hello everyone. Today was the first day I didn't go to post office to send my work this week. I had lots of desk work to do instead. Good news kept coming from all over the world. All pieces I sent last month were arriving day by day! How wonderful!

Yesterday I handbuilt the body for the Storm. I am not keen on coiling, but I used the method to build it up until almost 11 o'clock at night. As soon as it was finished, I realised that the body is not for the storm head! How disappointing! I went to the bed with a heavy heart. About four hours' work would be useless.

This morning, while I took photos of the body, I thought it looks too good to be destroyed and  I might make a new head for it. That's what I have done.

Front

You might wonder why there are flowers. Mike cut them for me from the garden. They have very sweet fragrance I love. They grow next to the garden door, so the stems get damaged. I asked Mike to sellotape one of them. 

Back

Side

 And she looked like this - below - at lunch time. Well done, Midori! I pat my back.

Torso

I have been on my studio chair for too long recently. I am having persistent backache. One of the best things to ease the pain for me is walking. As it was sunny and ground became less muddy, I took Pearl to a park.

Pearl and my shadow

Mum, I am just coming!

 
She is very active outside. You can't believe that she sleeps almost 23 hours a day!

Midori made a friend with a swan

Hello everyone. I have lots to share with you, but today I will write about the swan I met in the weekend. We walked to Westgate garden on Saturday.

Our girls have been sulking a bit because I had been busy in my small studio.

Why should I get up?

I will make myself art!

 So when my back started aching, we thought we will go for a good walk.

Let's go! 

We walked all over and found the places we had never been. How exciting! But it was not that exciting when Pearl decided she saw a cat. She made such commotion; Mike had to carry her...

Shame of the family! :D

We walked more and more, and went to Westgate garden.

Late afternoon sun

 If you watch Bargain Hunt on BBC, this is the place they often film at the end of the program.

The child is not related to us. :D

 Then there was a swan. I called him and cooed him. He came!

He didn't stop. He got out of the water and started walking toward me. I was already very close, in arm's reach with beak to nose. I was a bit worried. When I waved my hand, he wagged his big tail. I know that is friendly gesture. But as I didn't have anything to give him, I said good bye to him, and decided to return with some food next day!

He came closer and stood up!

Next day, Sunday, we went back to visit him after eating a cake, Mike bought for himself, but I ate sponge part!

The river was still very full and there was still flood in some areas.

The swan was there. Current was fast, and he struggled to follow me, but I found a place I could feed him ... organic chicken pellets! 

What are they?

 If they are good for chickens, I thought they are good for swans, too!  But when I showed him, I could see some disappointment on his pretty face. : (

I left some on the wood, then he started eating them! Yeah! A passer-by told me that they have to dunk them to eat. And that's what he did. I was so happy!

I prefer bread...