Post-meeting

Hmmmm re The Flying Slippers (last post).
The whole idea sounded better in my head than coming out of my mouth.
Gulp.

Interlude...

Aaaaah.... here is a quick interlude for you... Perthshire Sunset Under Ash...

Pretty huh?  (sorry - that's two thirds of it... click for the sun part..)
Right, back to the daily grind....
I have now to bully some thoughts into clarity regarding my FLYING SLIPPER installation at Heartwood during this autumn's Perthshire Open Studios. Tomorrow I must usher forth a proposal about said naughty, wild, flying footwear in front of other artists and not make it sound either naff or twee. 
Being Naff and Twee in front of other artists gets your head kicked in and causes shame and embarrassment and a lot of toe-staring.
Hence... my slippers will be quite dark.  (and I don't mean, y'know, burgandy or something)

I'll report back after tomorrow.

Meanwhile the fireplace tiles are coming on but are still at the dull, plain, square, nothing-to-see-here stage.  There's alot of donkey work in this game- it's not all heady glamour and giddy kiln openings.

TTFN

Nasturtium Fireplace Tiles

I've been diligently recording various stages of my work recently so I can post them on here.... from new cartoon animal jewellery to a rather nice nasturtium fireplace I'm doing for a client.

Really anything that is around when I remember to grab the camera!

There will be eighteen 16cm tiles to this masterpiece and it'll be tubelined (piped liquid clay) with glazed infills.

Um, sounds good!

After agreeing a design with the client, I print each tile out and trace onto a raw clay clay tile I made earlier...nothing has been fired yet.

Good old carbon paper is all you need for this! Look closely and you'll see the lines on the clay.

then comes the part that requires a mightily steady hand... which I didn't have as I'd been glugging coffee as per!!!

Note to self... plan ahead wiv da caffiene. (I'll no be doing these in the mornings then.)

So, not too bad already... tubelining is one classy technique that is appearing like a rash all over my work!!! At least it's great until you get an air bubble in the bottle - then it parps slip all over your virgin clay.

Swearing is allowed and encouraged when this occurs.

Okay... said tile is consigned to the mercy of the kiln gods....

and then... voila.. clay is now ceramic. It's not the same, oh no.

Please note that I don't normally do one at a time! I'm using this one as a test... it may take a few goes to get the colour bang on at a later stage. That's a couple of soap dishes and a ring under there. Can't abide a half empty kiln.

Another episode soon in the exciting series of ' Work in Progress...'