The Swallows are fine and Stan is the biggest, none have fallen out of the nest yet and feeding is constant.In the pottery today I have worked on this ray dish scratching away at the blue grey slip, I started it yesterday so it has in fact taken me, with the build, three days to get to this stage, but I have been doing other things too. Tomorrow I will put on some copper and then it is off to the kiln with it. Working out my return on these dishes I am not making very much money. Should I give up (?) no, not yet I might get faster at making them. If I really crunch this down into man hours I suppose it is 20 hours to end product, this one is going to sell for £300, after gallery split, well best not to think about it really because of course all the clay, glaze and electricity is absolutely free! I HAVE to speed up the processing, the question is HOW?
4 comments:
Hi Kitty, Oh the ray is so beautiful, I love the color, will that be the final color? I love turquoise. When you say you apply copper - is it a copper wash?
I notice you have carving on the back does the underside have to be carved too - what if you only carved the front to reduce the number of hours? I know I am speaking heresey for your art, just a thought.
The swallow family are wonderful - is that four babies I see? The couple posing photo is wonderful as well as the nest shots, it must be hard to concentrate on your work with them around.
Can't wait to see your next post, it is all so wonderful, your beautiful work and your swallow chronicles.
Kitty, the ray dish is really great, what a lovely design! It must be a bit "heart in mouth" firing them and hoping that nothing goes wrong in the kiln.
I was just looking back at your posts with the swallow photos, and was amazed by the way the nest is constructed... it wouldn't look at all out of place in a contemporary ceramics exhibition, most impressive (and, of course, the swallows are wonderful too!).
Well swallow cronicles aside I am back in the workshop this afternoon despite the heat. This dish is with the very odd slip that will actually go more grey than turquoise when fired. The copper goes on in a white slip and I paint it inbetween the grey patches. It bleeds nicely on the white. If I put it on the grey than I would have to mix it with grey. Underside decoration is the first time I have done this which is why it took so long, but I do like it. It will go throught the kiln this week so it should be published soon.
Fantastic dish mum, I hope it fires ok. I really like the 'feet'. x
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