Christmas is on its way.

I have been making some photo's to use for Christmas cards, every year I make my own cards just because it is fun to do, they are individually, personal, and it will save me money in the process. So this year it is photo's, I am trying to keep it in one colour looks better I think.

there's chickens,.... and then there's chickens!

Getting ready for the upcoming Christmas fair, making some more chickens, this time I call them bag-ladies, can U see the little handbags they are carrying? Still in the drying stage so no colour on them yet.

And then there are these cute little baby chickens, silkies so lots of feathers coming up and this is Wat they are going to look like.

I AM GETTING 3 HOORAY.

weeds!

Even the weeds look nice! Well... that's wat I think anyway and there is lots of them and many different varieties as well. Hard to keep up getting rid of so best to enjoy the beauty!

workshop.

I have been attending a workshop with Jim Robison over the last 2 days, something totally different from what I usually do very inspiring and nice to have picked up some different techniques as well.
He mainly works with clay slabs and build bigger things.

"the feather journey"

From white pot to feathered beauty.

Another article I read and is very useful!

If you have any problems, it helps to know exactly what you've done with the product-that means keeping track of things like firing schedules, used pyrometric cones, samples of the unsuccessful work, the original container the material came in with the batch number etc.

Not something I always do and I believe we al are guilty of at some stage!!

these are for you Barry!

A water tank with beautiful patina on it's outside.

I saw this tank at lake catarabah the salt air must have something to do with it.

It's not always as easy as it seems.

All pottery products are based on raw materials occurring in nature and they are therefore ALL VARIABLE all of the time.
REMEMBER THERE IS NOTHING MORE CONSTANT THAN CHANGE.
The materials, the kiln, performance and the methods are always variable and something as simple as water quality or weather will change the performance of pottery products.

a bit of information.

Pottery is 50% creativity and 50% science.

Understanding your pottery materials is essential

if you want to have control of them. This includes not only knowing their best characteristics and performance, but also their worst and most temperamental. Just like humans, every material(clay, glaze, colourant, raw material etc.) has its own character and will not be identical in performance to others. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND.

Some information I found amongst my collected pieces of paper, and something I do understand now having worked with clay for some time, but never seen it this way before.

So yeah, it is a good idea to keep a technical diary or logbook to record experiments.

vessel.

Maleny artworks is having a "vessel" competition going this month, this is my entree, "GROTTO"

A multi-fired piece to get the colours the way I wanted them, the base is 25x25 cm. The height is about 50 cm.

I had a sneak preview yesterday wen i dropped of my pieces, looks very impressive and lots of interesting vessels are on display worth a look if you are in or coming to Maleny this month.

And then a few more of mine.

I had fun making these funny little teapots.

And now I am getting ready for my display in the Maleny Library, displaying in the two cabinets in the foyer.

One will be filled with my horsehair ceramics the other one will be a mixture of all other thing I do.

And here they are.

Last night I went to the opening of the Maleny teapot and tea cosy competition, and what a

variety of weird and wonderful pots and cosies there was, I wouldn't have liked to be a judge but I totally agree with there decisions of the winners

Winner of the creative teapot made by Charlie Moore

"Aunt Edna comes to tea "

And I am very happy to get a Highly commended for my functional teapot

"Green Tea"

Some of the other teapots I liked:

FINE ARTS, TEAPOTS AND TEACOSIES.

This coming week-end 25, 26 and 27 September the Fine Arts, Teapots and Tea cosy competition is on there will be funky teapots, fuzzy tea cosies and wonderful paintings on show.

Beautiful work by Shannon Garson.

Great artist are doing the judging, Shanon Garson will be judging the teapots,

and Loani Prior will judge the tea cosies.

One of Loani's funky tea cosies from her fantastic tea cosy book.

Woopy!

The bowl survived and I'm pretty happy with the result. As predicted it came out greenish.
Have to make some more I think.

It survived in bisque!

Well that was good, it survived the bisque up to firing 2 and hopefully we get trough that one save as well, I really like it so far, but you never know what the end result will be.

I love the way the colour comes out in the crevices but they will change to green after the glaze firing I think, its in the kiln now always an exciting surprise opening the kiln door and see how it all looks.

Trying something new again!

I tried something different with this bowl, hand build in a mould with the foot thrown on the wheel later. Not fired yet, a bit of a challenge I hope it won't crack in the bisque, will it survive??

First rain for a while

We have been lucky today with some heavy rain, it brings out the little green frogs straight away. They sit on the windows trying to catch the little insects that get attracted to the light.

result pit-fire!

Here is the result from our pit-fire, as you can see some didn't survive!!
But others will look good after cleaning and polishing.

pit fire.

Yesterday we did a above ground pit fire, Planning it in winter wen it is somewhat cooler.... not!!!!

We heard a few explosions, timber to dry, fire to fast, pots warming up to fast and can't handle it.

Opening up tomorrow and see wat sort of surprises are awaiting us!

yummy apple cake.

This looks so good!

yummy

2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
3 large eggs
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of canola oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3 cups of peeled and chopped apples
½ cup of dark raisins, chopped
½ cup of walnuts, chopped
One 12-cup tube pan greased and floured.
Preheat the oven to 350’degrees F.
Stir together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs. Then slowly add sugar. Next slowly add the oil and vanilla.
Use a spatula to fold in the flour. Fold in apples, raisins, and nuts.
Bake cake for an 60 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the pan for 5 minutes on a wire rack. Finally remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
Cake can be dusted with powdered sugar or served with vanilla ice cream. The cake will keep for several days if wrapped tightly in plastic or you can freeze the cake for up to 3 months.

It's on again.

In april 2010 Clay energy is on again in gulgong. for 5 days talks, demonstrations, exhibitions and special events will take place in the historic and friendly town of Gulgong, heart of the renowned Puggoon clay deposits - a town small and convenient enough to be intimate and at the same time becoming again the hub of the ceramic world. Janet Mansfield is the art director and will host a day at Morning View including exhibitions and participatory events. Chester Nealie is the master of ceremonies. A great place to meet other people who love to work in clay.

The clay pits in gulgong.
Huge mountains of white raw clay, it looks like salt.