Tile with Paper Resist Method

Cut your paper shape out of 80 gram paper, I work out a whole sheet in Illustrator as vectors so they can be sized up or down as required.

Coat the leather hard tile with the base slip, in this case dark green, you need a couple of coats.

When the slip is still wet apply the paper shapes and paint the same base colour over them to fix. Leave to dry off a little.

Then coat with the top colour of slip, in this case white. Apply several coats until you can barely see the papers.

Leave to dry slightly, when the surface is touchable you can take a pin to the paper and hook it off carefully. If this stage is done too late the paper will not lift off cleanly and leave a ragged edge.

Dry tiles under a heavy weight between thick canvas and paper to stop warping.

The Shop Window

I also found this amazing shop in Granada yesterday. Candidi Puerto which has been here since 1945, and not much has changed since then I would think. However they do have a web site so you can buy your mantillas and Peinetas on line!

Today In Granada

We just had to get out of the workshop today as we were getting cabin and mountain fever, I know they are beautiful but every day it starts to make you desperate for a bit of city life. Snow is forecast for the high ground and it will be damp, the Harley ride out has been cancelled for tomorrow so it must be official.
Picture above is me calling back to Kirstie, and she has snapped me on her camera!

This fountain is always gushing water it was a real treat to see in a static state today as these beautiful statues are normally veiled by a curtain of falling water.

A very typical Andalusian house called a Sharon ( there I go again it is a Carmen) ....I made a terrible mistake once and called them Tracey's! The internal courtyard is very elegant and I would love to live in a house like this.

Outside this extraordinary church Virgen de las Angustias in Carrera Genil is a wall with a small statue of Our Lady surrounded by photographs. Inside the church takes your breath away with its opulence.

In the vestry round the back I found this lovely stone sink.

Busy Day in the Workshop

Top: The jar with jewels and full colour
Middle: Tiles for around my wood burning stove paper resist and driving Kirstie mad I think

Bottom: Kiln full of test tiles with colours for the pair of jars.

E Conchis Omnia

E Conchis Omnia

I am posting this image up quickly because I have only just come in from the workshop after a very long session and I am still a bit dirty, I am very hungry, thirsty (wine) and cold!

Very Rococo Baroque. More tomorrow, I hope. This is just outline, colour is coming soon.

E Conchis Omnia

Translates: Everything from shells. In the 1770's this was painted on Erasmus Darwin's carriage, prompting a local clergyman to lambaste him in verse:
Great wizard he! by magic spells

Can all things raise from cockle shells.

These first drawings indicate the direction the decoration is taking for the commissioned pair of jars, they will match someof the design on the tables and tie in very nicely to the clients coat of arms which contains the cockle shell.

The Commission

The first stage is finished and the jars are an official pair. Now begins the difficult bit! Maybe you can work out how big they are form the banding wheels they are standing on; of course there is the 12 ⅔ shrinkage to consider too. I have two more lids to make tomorrow so I have one in reserve.

Below the last of the leaves hang onto the poplar trees in the valley, and still no snow on the mountains

Olive Tree Today

From the Kiln

I am so pleased with my tea pot, I have been using it for a few days... and it doesn't drip at all! It is an utter joy to use but making it reminded me of why I don't make tea pots any more; they are so difficult to get right!

Space Ships In The Sky

This was the cloud formation over the Sierra Nevada last night as we headed into the city. We often see these space ships over the mountains I think it has something to do with the wind as it whips around the peaks. You will notice still no snow and there really should be by now, we have not had rain for weeks and the temperatures are very warm still. Lovely for the work out put because we can have the doors open and see the village go by.

Introducing Kirstie

Here is the one we call Kirstie! Her second day in the workshop and she is catching on quickly to the rhythm of the clay. I don’t think she actually believes me how soon all these pots she is making are going to need processing, she is so keen and fast to learn. I keep saying the pots will start screaming for attention and she thinks I am mad! I have introduced her to the potters best friend; a sheet of plastic!
Below I have finished the fist of the pair and the second one is growing.

The Commission

My studio assistant Kirstie has arrived from England and she has a camera and is not backward at getting it out, so stand by for a few more entertaining photographs of the workshop, captured as it is happening!
Here I am working on one of the commissioned pair of jars for the Messel table. More tomorrow.

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

My Dyson Bliss vase is on display at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. It looks like it is under a piece of Morecroft and above some Clarice Cliff,; couldn't be better really. The label reads like this:

Kitty Shepherd Dyson Bliss 2008 Ceramic vase

This vase has been made by hand using rolled coils from red earthenware clay by the potter. This method uses a small banding wheel and a cardboard profile; the only other tools used are kidney shaped pieces of steel and rubber for smoothing the shape.
The decoration has been applied in the slipware tradition onto the unfired damp pot. The coloured painting medium is made by adding metal oxides and ceramic stains to white Cornish slaked down clay and is called slip, hence the name “slipware”. Most of the design is painted but the potter has used a trailer to outline and a sharp point to incise and enhance the pattern.
The vase has been fired twice. It took 14 days to make and is one of several pots with Dyson Vacuum cleaners on made by Kitty Shepherd.

Another Shop WIndow

Well look what I found, another shop window to thrill and delight. This time a city window, a very different beast altogether because it is catering for a more discerning viewer, this dear readers, is the throbbing metropolis, and none other than a Granada city cake shop!
Just look at these cakes, do they suggest anything edible to you? No. Here we see just a small section of a vast window given over to fantasy cake decorating, I have to say the glass was spectacularly clean, the cakes however were not. They did seem have a cake to represent every possible cake celebrating life moment you could wish for. The tennis cake got my vote!

Click the image for genuine eye watering detail.

Decorating Stoneware

My daughter may kill me for posting these pots because they are all of her. They are made by the potter and painter Eric James Mellon in West Sussex, England. He is the absolute font of knowledge on ash glazes, his creation of ash-glazed pots that preserve underglaze graphic art is unrivalled. Mind you he has spent over 50 years working on these glazes, he is of course an honorary member of the Craft Potters' Association.
His book on decorating stoneware is a like a secret alchemy book of spells as he tells us all how it is done, there are no mirrors here, but there is definitely a lot of smoke, I know I have been there and done it with him. My daughter Jessica became his muse in 2006, he paints her whenever he can, isn't she lucky!

ISBN number 978-0-948765-07-0 Decorating Stoneware by Eric James Mellon published May 2007 by University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus. PO19 6PE