Explosion of packing and posting! part 2

Here are some of works sold lately. All were packed very well, and so far there is no accident. Touch wood!  

Japanese girl

Answer was in the box

Lots of birds have gone, too. Little birds are always popular. 

Long tailed tit

Bronze-glaze wren

Little bird

Sleepy Owl has flown to a lovely lady , USA 

Song thrush

Crow on a mount - sold

Flora the cherub found a loving home

Anteater has also found a super home.

These whippets were never seen in public, as they have gone as soon as they came out of the kiln!

Little ones were swiftly adopted. 

The last bronze-gold glazed whippet has gone. 

While I was wrapping the bronze whippet, this beauty has also gone!

Polar bears are also popular. 

The second set of mum and cub has gone to a loving home. 

All babies have gone very quickly. 

And the last but not the least. I do make functional ceramics on request.  

The chameleon brooch and sample tapir spoon as well as a baby tapir has gone to a lovely lady.  

Chameleon  brooch

Tapir spoon

Face cup, on commission. 

Face cup - front

Face cup - back

And this celadon bowl has gone to a gentleman.

Have a great week, everyone! 

Dream and celadon bowl

Hello everyone. Last night I had a strange dream. I was in the meeting led by my former Japanese architect boss (I used to work as an interior designer in an architect's office in Tokyo). There were one of primary school classmates and two former colleagues in the room. I felt sick, so I told them that I would go home. I was in an elevator going down. There was a high school classmate who became graphic designer. She didn't seem to recognize me. But when I was about to get out, she said 'You don't look well.'  I walked around the vast building and found a white room with a girl lying in a simple steel bed, and there was another bed. I lay on the bed. Then I woke up with incredible thirst and fever. I don't need Freud for this one, do I? I just wanted to go to hospital!

We had a warm day today. It was warmer outside than inside. Pumpkin, our chicken, slept under the raspberry bushes (no leaves yet). Our dogs slept in a sunny spot on the lounge. I also took a peaceful nap this afternoon.

When I woke up, I had an email from a lovely lady in Singapore; a sculpture and a rabbit cup have arrived safely. What good news!

I have listed one celadon bowl in my shop today. This is from my latest reduction firing. The small bowl fired in March was so good that I have glazed a couple of pots with same celadon this time. Alas, only this was properly reduced; the other one was only half reduced, so it has to go to re-firing in June.

'Peppermint choco chips ice cream bowl' in my shop

 
It is 6 2/5 inches wide (16 cm), and  3 1/3 inches tall (8.6 cm). It is versatile. Mike threw this pot with coarse grey clay. We call it 'peppermint choco chips ice cream'. Instead of dipping the pot in the glaze, I brushed the glaze, so that brush marks could be seen.

Inside

   

Too much is as bad as too little

Hello everyone. We are still in a dark, cold, damp spell. I have stayed at home except for short dog walks. My work got busy and I need to focus on it.

Today, I will show you porcelain fired in reduction. They are my test pieces. Although I had known that porcelain become blueish white in reduction firing, I didn't expect they become this blue!  Those we used to use in Japan were not this blue in my memory.

I decorated these porcelain pots just before I finished packing the gas kiln. I ran out of ideas of decoration; I don't like repeating same design. As I was moving the brush, I thought, 'Umm, is it too much?' but I kept going. Alas, it became OTT!

It started ok.

 

Somehow I felt more was more at that time. 

Ah-oh. Too late. I did too much!

Back is still nice, though! lol

This is yunomi (tea cup). Despite the mistake with the bowl above, I somehow carried on. There is too much cobalt decoration all over, even inside! I soon remembered Japanese saying, 'Too much is as bad as too little'. Aghh, too late!

Yunomi with too much decoration!

Last one is something I cherish. I love the pine ash glaze. I make it myself; I burned the pine branches found on the campus nearby, washed the ash about 50 times, and made the glaze. But the problem is that I don't have enough pine branches to make lots of ash, so the ash glaze is only a small quantity. I poured inside, but I had to brush outside. I love the colours. It has the atmosphere of early spring. 

Inside is natural celadon. Ash has higher iron content than other trees easily available In Japan. So when they make celadon glaze from scratch, Japanese use pine trees.  

Pine ash glaze, natural celadon colour