Little ones went to bisque-firing

Hello! First, if you are in the US and you would like to get Christmas deliveries, please place orders by the 11th, tomorrow. I will send all orders on the 12th to the US 

The little ones were glaze-fired today. I hope they come out fine tomorrow. Please Santa, keep them safe! There are lots of Christmas presents in it. I can't bear it if anything goes wrong!

I have three Tapirs this time. They were already spoken for. As they caused a bit of stir on Twitter, I have made a Tapir waiting list for 2015! If you would like to be on it, please let me know. : )  

Here is the Mother Tapir.

 

 

 She and two babies!

Lower shelf has bronze-gold glaze. I can't take any orders for bronze-gold glaze any longer, as it is running out, and sadly I was not able to make same one. 

Top shelf has rabbits, lambs, anteaters, a pig and a tapir.

Little anteater is hiding here! 

Top shelf is a bit crowded! 

My fingers are crossed for their safe firing! I will see tomorrow. I feel a bit nervous, I must say.

Mike caught a beautiful sunset. The Nature is amazing! Keep warm, everyone!

Little ones are great joy

It was another busy week for me. The bell in my shop has kept ringing. I have gone to Post Office every day. It has been too cold to walk, as max. temperature has been 3- 5C, so I have driven. One day a tyre punctured in front of Post office! The air came out with shhhhhhh sound and It became as flat as a pancake! Oh no! When I gathered myself and walked in Post office, their system had just gone down! It came back after about 30 minutes. I was able to post all my works. I left the car there, walked back and contacted Mike at office. He had to walk down to 'do something; about it. He did. :D

Yesterday I had to go to the Embassy in London. I didn't feel very well, and it was so cold. I didn't want to go. But once the business was done there, I decided to go to see Egon Schiele exhibition at Courtauld gallery and to do some Christmas shopping. It was a good day after all. I will tell you about the visit later.

So it was an eventful week, but I have managed to make good progress on my little ones. Here is Mademoiselle Wren. I was going to make a simple mask, but she had a different idea.

Mademoiselle Wren

 Wednesday, I started bisque-firing. Some of them are Christmas orders and others are for the Easter!

Lower shelf

Top shelf. 

Next day, they came out safely from the kiln! This time, there are tapir, piglets, lemur, polar bear as well as the usual suspects!

I made good progress on them today. I will continue tomorrow. Ironically I tweeted a week ago that I would not work on weekends any longer this year. How little I knew! What is a weekend?

 But, I hope you have a good weekend! : )

New works in Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury and Bluemoon Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

Hello! My last deliveries to galleries were done this week. On Wednesday I took two Angels to Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury.

They greet you at the reception hall, at Sidney Cooper Gallery, 22-23 St Peter's St, Canterbury. Left one is a bit shy. He looks after animals and children. The right one with wings is still boyish. Sometimes he is bit naughty.  

Angels - Sidney Cooper

 
As some of you knew, I am not good at driving and/or navigating, Mike drove me to Tunbridge Wells last Thursday. The Bluemoon Gallery is at 18 Camden Road, opposite to the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre.

Bluemoon Gallery

It is a lovely gallery in the middle of Tunbridge Wells. 

The owner, Dominic with my works

The Angel is quiet, confident and big brother of all Angels.

  

Angel - Bluemoon Gallery

I made Crying Owl earlier this year, But I hadn't shown it until recently. It has strong presence and didn't look quite right next to my Angels and human figures in shows. It is about my friend, who was passing through a difficult time. The owl is the friend as well as myself.  The owl's tears are blood.

Crying Owl - Bluemoon Gallery

Princess of Baklava's great-great-grandfather was a brother of one of the last Sultans of the Ottoman empire.  He used to throw a party to all important people in the palace. His cook made the most delicious Baklava in the world. They had rose scent because he made a syrup from most beautifully scented yellow rose petals. They were harvested first in the morning before they unfurled, so that all scent remained inside.  His guest enjoyed the treats so much. The reputation was wide spread in the Empire. Princess of Baklava's cook still makes baklava with rose syrup made from yellow rose petals.

Princess of Baklava - Bluemoon Gallery

Links
Sidney Cooper Gallery

Bluemoon Gallery

Brighton by day, Hastings by night

Last Saturday, Mike and I went to Brighton to deliver my work to Kellie Miller Arts gallery. The roads were clear luckily. It took us only 90 minutes to get to the city centre of Brighton. But from there our Satnav kept leading us to all roads with no entry! A big problem. As lots of readers live overseas, let me explain. Brighton is a medium sized resort city at the sea. The central area has a maze like foot paths and narrow roads. It is a nightmare to drive in there.  And parking is very expensive for the size of the city. £4 per hour in the city centre during the weekend.

So we were so close to the gallery, about 5 minutes walk, but took longer than 30 minutes to get there by car! Mike was still recovering from the flu, and I was a bit under the weather, so when we got there, we were exhausted.

Kellie Miller Arts have Angels, Hope and Paper Crown.

Angels with wings

hope

Paper Crown didn't have a chance to have proper photos taken! But he looks as regale as ever in the box!  

Paper crown

Kellie Miller Arts is having their first anniversary on Market Street. Kellie herself is ceramic artist. Her gallery has very interesting collection of ceramic arts. While we were there, lots of people popped in.

My work will be there until the end of the year. The gallery is also taking a part in the Christmas Artists Open Houses starting from the 29th and continuing until the 14th December. If you are going to be in Brighton over the coming weeks, do pop in! You won't be disappointed!

Lovely ceramic gallery

If you come to Brighton, you have to have cakes at the Julien Plumart boutique! Despite the difficulties, we were determined to park the car somewhere a bit cheaper. A mistake! We were stuck in congestion. The view from the car wasn't spectacular, neither.

Of course, only our was was congested! 

In the end, we took longer than 30 minutes to park the car ( about 7 minutes on foot!) and finally reached the gourmet destination!

We had delicious lunch; mine, smoke salmon, Mile's, ham. Then we had cakes with Sri Lankan lemon grass tea! Bavarois of pistachio, (would you believe it?) Strawberry coulis and raspberry macaroon for the madame, and a hazel praline cake for the monsieur.

Of course, we bought a couple for the next day!


After this, we headed for Hastings. We knew that it would be too late for Jerwood, but I had heard there is a ceramic gallery. Satnav really doesn't work in Brighton! Now we were lead to a closed road. Somehow we got out, and then in congestion! It was supposed to be about one hour drive, but it took us nearly 90 minutes, by the time we arrived at Hastings, it was dark! The famous cliff was lit up.

Old town looks more attractive in the dark in some ways.

We found a gallery and then headed for coffee and another cake! We were again very tired! On the way back to a parking, we found this a half Totoro and a half owl! 

We drove the land without street lights to go back to Canterbury. We were near Romney marsh and its landscape reminds me of the place Marsh-wiggles live!

We also had to climb up the hill and come down in the dark with a hairpin curve at the bottom. A couple of street lights would be nice!

We were exhausted when we got home and had an early night.

And here is the image for you who wondered what kind of cake we bought! :D Mine had Marsala wine in it! Heavenly! They will never disappoint me! ( yes, you guessed right. Mike always chooses rectangular ones! )

More works found new homes this week!

A week has passed so quickly. Poor Mike caught flu. He had terrible headache and fever. I almost caught it; I had muscle aches on shoulder and headache, but somehow got away. I haven't got time to be sick. There are so many thing to be done! My shop has been busy; I'm packing and posting everyday. I had jobs to finish on the sculptures I would take to Brighton tomorrow. I have just finished everything today. 

Early this week these three angels were posted to the Cupola gallery, Sheffield. We had to make special boxes for them for safe delivery.  Delicious exhibition at Cupola Gallery starts on Friday 28 November 7:30 pm.

Their ceramic section including my work is here.

Three angels at Cupola Gallery, Sheffield. 

This lovely reduction fired vase with ears found a lovely home in Devon. The gentleman who purchased it used to helping make glazes for well-known ceramic artists. 

Vase with ears - Sold

And this mini-chicken is for his mother. How lovely! I still have a few mini-chickens in my shop, if you fancy a hen or two!

Mini-Chicken - sold

This greyhound went to a lovely lady in London. Because of thin glaze in tiny parts, I re-fired her. Then the kiln was over-fired, and most gold disappeared. So I asked her permission, and fired her again. It was all worth it. Don't you think? 

Greyhound - sold 

Both Angel Christmas/Greeting cards are out of stock now. They should be in stock by the end of the month. So if you are interested, please check my shop.  £2.75 for each, £10 for 4, and £12 for six. They also look great in frames, of course!  

Christmas/Greeting cards

Christmas/Greeting cards