Progress on Harpie, a little white line and Pumpkin

Hello everyone. I have been off-colour recently, so I am slowly doing ceramics at home.

Last Saturday I finished this face. It is going to be the second face for Harpie. The main part is going be reduction fired next week.

Harpie face

Last night I made a plinth, an unusual one, for the Harpie. Although I call it a plinth, it is not going to be weight bearing. It will hide a steel rod which will support the sculpture. 

A plinth

Some people remember that I recently bought a new camera for my ceramics. The day after the camera arrived, I took about 30 photos with the wrong setting. Clever readers like you would soon notice that the white bar on the left is the place for setting, but I didn't! I somehow set 'tulip' to the position of 'ON', opposite to the real place. So I unintentionally set for 'Av'. According to Mike, it happened to be fine for what I was doing. I used to ridicule my parents for their tech unawareness when I was young. (My father doesn't know how to use fax machines. My mother is not completely sure how to 'copy and paste'!) Now I should start worrying myself!

I couldn't see the little white line! 

Pumpkin has begun eating mortar on the house again. This only means one thing - that she will start laying before too long. Her tail returned and her feathers are getting prettier everyday. Her comb and wattles will become much darker and the last pin feathers on the neck will unfurl within days. Then, she will return to her throne to peck us around!  We can't wait!

Pumpkin shot by Mike

  

Lovely pots from our first firing of the year

Hello everyone. Yesterday morning I woke up very early. It was before dawn, about six o'clock because I was excited to see the result of our firing. I had put several experimental pieces in it. Mike and I trotted to the garage in the cold morning air. Yeah! So happy! Here are two of my favourite ones.

Large guinomi, porcelain

  The first one is my favourite side. I love the black and red spots as well as 'dry' looking brush marks.

I love the big swish.

 I used black and red in reference to Japanese ink drawing.

Porcelain sake cup

 The next one is guinomi. It will be in your palm; typical guinomi size.

My favourite side

Sgraffito

 
This dark brown is black iron oxide. It need thick application to get a strong colour, but that way brush marks would be lost. I only did once, and it looks thin after firing.

Dark brown was Black Iron oxide,. 

 It is liberating to decorate pots like this. In Japan where I am from, cobalt oxide is widely used for decorating porcelain by professional specialists. I always admired their skills. I do a free-style with my Japanese calligraphy brushes and Chinese painting brushes. They are wonderful on ceramics, too. You need to practice different strokes before you could use the brushes well in the way we do, but it will be all worth it. (Japanese children have once a week calligraphy class in primary schools. I had never dreamt of the repetitive practice on strokes would ever become useful one day in UK!)      

My new test piece Yunomi

Hello everyone. I took several photos of my test piece, yunomi (Japanese tea cup), this afternoon. I really like it. I was inspired by Carolyn's demo and Japanese calligraphy, which I used to do.

Here are a 360 degree show for you. : )  (A shame about the reflection of the Georgian style windows. )

Test piece-1

I like this swish!

 We are glaze-firing tomorrow, and I have another test piece in it. I hope it will come out as bright as this one!

Oh, today my Canon EOS was delivered. Mike recommended the model for beginners ( the cheapest one!); there are more than enough functions for my use, he said. I hope I can shoot the better photos of my work with it. I haven't really looked at it yet because I have been busy with glazing today. I will let Mike read the instruction, and explain it to me. Hahaha. ( I can hear some unfamiliar beeping from downstairs. I bet he is playing with it right now!)

Reduction fired pots

Hello everyone. Today I am sharing a couple of the images of reduction fired pots with you. I only wish I could take photos better. The subtle nuances of the surfaces are lost in my photos. This is the round vase.  I like it a lot because it looks different from different angles. 

Round vase

I added 'ears' to the next vase. As usual, I leave throwing marks. I can't see any point of removing them because they are beautiful as well as they are the signs of how it was made. I mainly put shino glaze on the 'ears' on this vase. The flowers like daffodils or irises would look lovely in this.
 

Vase with 'ears'

Film making workshop at World heritage site

Hello everyone. I went to a film making workshop (10:00-16:00), which was a part of our MA course. I have never thought making films before. Unfortunately there was no time to make a film today, but at the end of the course, we made simple proposals for the films we could make. We watched several short art films. One of them I enjoyed was Le Sang d'un Poète (1930) by Cocteau. I liked two of his other films, 'Les Enfants Terribles' and 'La Belle et La Bete' when I watched them in Japan a long time ago. Another one was (Tommy-Chat Just E-mailed Me) 2006 by Ryan Trecartin. I found it excellent. The soundtrack is brilliant, too.

The workshop was held on the main campus, where I had never seen before. When you approach the university, you see this most beautiful gate in Canterbury. You feel so privileged to go through it.

King's school gate - Fyndon gate (rebuilt between 1301-1309)

But this one is for King's school, the oldest school in UK (Found in 597 AD). When you look on the left, there is a tiny gate, which looks like maids' gate, that goes to the campus.

The maids' gate- my naming, folks!

There are the remains of the old monastery founded in 613AD on the campus. This wall below was the end of  the brewhouse and bakehouse.  It is one of  the World heritage sites in Canterbury. The monastery had been here for about 900 years until Henry VIII dissolved all monasteries 1538.

World heritage site

St Augustine Abbey outer precinct monument.

 Historic monuments were only outside. All the buildings are modern.

In the film theatre