Pottery - what I do in my spare time!

Hi everyone

After promising a few photos of my pottery I finaly got around to snapping some photos today!!! Of course if I took photos of every pot and plate I have made it would be so boring so I have tried to keep it to techniques and a few styles.....

Japanese papers - I know this looks as though I sat with a paint brush forever detailing in blue or black - but actually this is Japanese transfer paper. What you do is apply it to a pot which is ready to bisque fire, so it is raw. The papers come in A3 sheets and you apply the paper but dampening the pot with a sponge then section by section placing the paper onto the pot with the damp sponge. It does take a fair bit of practice!



From trial and error though - you must remove the paper once it is dry because other wise it makes a mess of other pots in the kiln - and no one is happy! The print stays on the pot. Also, with a bisque firing people do tend to place pots inside each other - this can't happen with these pots - as we found out - what a mess!!! Anyway we have all learnt the hard way and now have much more success.



I rather like the pot above as I didn't glaze the inside after the bisque firing, just the inside so it can be used to hold liquid and it won't stain.

Pots which have been glazed with a clear glaze over the top of the pattern.....

These are some bonsai pots I have made using the same tenique with the Japanese papers, but they are on Walkers 5A Dark which is a clay that I really love at the moment. Probably because it is so silky to throw and comes out a wonderful biscuit colour. Unfortunately not all glazes that I use come out true on this clay but I have found the ones that look great on it and now use them......


Phil is the Bonsai King of this family, me I just make the pots and collect the little figures - like this great boat with the man finishing out the front and his wife doing the washing out the back. This boat cost me $20 and for the work in it I was happy to pay that amount it was so worth it!!!!

Complete with bonsai - is this case a fig tree and a laughing budda

This is a set of bowls I made for my brother for Christmas. They nest inside each other and get lots of use. We have several here as well and cook with them all the time. Jess and Matt also use theirs and the nice thing about pottery in comparison to ceramics is it takes a lot more wear and tear so they last longer. I love this glaze - as the iron in the clay reacts with the glaze the red can be seen through the creamy base of the glaze - it is one of my favourite glazes to use on Walkers 5A Dark clay.

For something completely different - here is a latte set. The cup and saucer are really rustic and don't have handles on the cups. I love the way these work and comments about them are really positive........


A view from above. These would also be really cool as a herbal tea set as well. I am definitely thinking that I might make more of these for friends at Xmas. I love the fern effect, but will think about some other designs as well - although I think the imprinted fern goes really well with the clay. Walkers copper rust is the glaze (but I am not too keen on the colour - I am still trying to find a green that works well on this clay).

Thanks for looking everyone,
Have a wonderful day wherever you are
Carol

Porcelain Vessels

I love throwing with different clays and one of my favourite clays is porcelain. In this case I have gone all out and thrown in Southern Ice which is one of hte most expensive clays at around $35 a bag.

With porcelain you have ot be so fussy to cleanliness as it tends to pick up all sorts of grit and I find it drys pretty quickly so you need to watch it and ensure that you turn it at just the right time.


But even with its issues it is like butter to through, I love the way it fires so white and pure and leach green glaze (which I have used here) seems to be made for it!


As you can see by these pots they look carved........ what I have done is used shellack and metholated spirits to paint on a design on a raw pot before a bisque firing, and then when it is dried on the pot wiped away the clay from around the design with a damp/dry sponge.

The tricks of the technique seem to be

• Dont use an overly damp sponge
• Make sure the shellack and metho mix is thick enough (or use two coats)

When the piece is fired the shellack burns off and leaves the raised clay underneath. In the rose pot the effect with a candle inside is stunning.

Thanks for looking - I hope you have enjoyed it
Love
Carol

Targine

Here is something that I loved making and with practive I am definitely going to produce more of these. A targine is an African cooking pot with a high lid and a shallow base.

I founf a picture of one with a domed lid which I liked and it is much easier to through than a cone shaped lid. I used Shiga red glaze and then a pale green glaze dribbled over the top, this broke the glaze into interesting brown and blue patterns.

I also made a rice vessel to go with the targine - we will be putting it through its paces this week and cooking an African vegetable stew in it and I will let you know how it goes......

Thanks for looking
Carol

Welcome to Scribbly Gums Art

Hi everyone and welcome to our olf friends and new to our new blog!

We will post some photos today... when we have a bit of time!

Love
Carol & Phil

A trip to Cairns

We visited Cairns last week and it was wonderful - warm, sunny and great tropical flowers!!!! So I got out my paints and off I went....

Please forgive me that I don't know some of the names of these flowers but they were so wonderful I had to do the paintings anyway....everything is so lush and gorgeous up there in tropical Australia - I had such a wonderful time - and I ran out of paper - all in all I did 8 paintings but I could have done more there were so many flowers.

Bouganvilia Vine

Heleconia

Pink bush - we thought it looked a bit like a pointsettia... the leaves make up the coloured bracts and the flower is the tiny bud at the top.

Purple vine which was growing through the trees

Heleconia

We visited the Cairns Botanical Gardens on Thursday and found that the gingers and heleconias were awesome - such amazing plants. We will go again next year and then I am taking double the paper I took this year.

Love
Carol

Please note that all paintings are copyright and you are welcome to look but please do not print or copy. I will be setting up a website soon so people can purchase original paintings, prints or cards...... this will link into that new website.

My Watercolours

Please respect that all my paintings are here to be shared, enjoyed but not copied or printed. They are copyright to Carol Mead 2008. For more info email me - please pop into my profile to send me an email....

I have been painting in watercolours since 1996 when I took a class with the wonderful Janet Twigg-Patterson. I still have many of those first paintings and they still make me smile!

I love the delicate way watercolourcan be applied to paper, the colours and the way it is sometimes very hard to control.

While I do landscapes occaisionally, I usually paint flowers and leaves of the Australian Bush, and if they aren't available any flora is fine with me....... I have my own style of course and while my paintings are not 'botanical', in that they are very exact, they still have a botanical fee to them.

A few years ago I went into watercolour pencils as I usually paint in strange locations which is difficult with pallettes and water. I have painted in caravan parks, on card tables, under dull light, on the bed of hotel rooms, on the ground, on verandas and in the car. Watercolour pencils give me the freedom to paint without the mess.

All I need is:

• 300gsm watercolour paper
• 2b pencil, eraser, sharpener
• Watercolour pencils (1 have about 40)
• A ink pen for lining - black, permanent and fine
• A small paintbrush - I use a white size 4
• A container of water - I use a vitamin container
• Tissues - 2 or 3
• A glass with water in it for my flower I am painting

The Paper: While you can get watercolour paper that is thinner (say 190gsm), I have found that it buckles. I am lazy and I don't like to stretch my paper - and I am often not somewhere that I could do this even if I wanted to....so I use the pad of 300gsm paper and I like a rough surface rather than a smooth because I like the effect of the paint int eh furrows of the paper. I don't use the paper though with lots of little grooves......as I don't like the stripey effect it makes. But each to their own!! usually I paint on A5 and A4 sizes, but if I am painting at home I sometimes use A3 but find this to large to handle out in the field.....

The flower: All I can say about this really is it must be something you relate to.... the shape, the colour, the leaves......you will paint it much better if you like it. I love roses..... but I hate painting them, I think it is because I try to draw and paint each petal and they are very complex. But I love lillies, gums, fushias, irises, butterfly bush, daisies, hakeas and so much more so I don't paint roses - I grow and photograph them instead.

Study of the piece: Each painting is unique as I study the flower (or leaves etc) very thoroughly and ensure I know how it is put together (that is the almost botanical bit). And then I have to admit that I may remove some bits I don't want to paint (this is decidedly unbotanical!!).

Drawing of the Flower: The view also might be scewed because I might paint in a leaf or bud....that isn't there at all (the botanical painters will be have apoplexy about now!) for me it is all about the presentation and if I need to put in or take away something then that is what I do.

Watercolour Pencils: I draw it carefully with the 2B pencil and then start to build in colour. In watercolour pencils you need to think not only in form but the colour has to also do your shading of light and dark. There is a real need to practice this and it is the most common reason I have found which stops people developing a love for this medium.

Making Magic: Then I take my paint brush load it with water and blot the excess off the brush onto a tissue and start to work on the paint. The painting starts to take on it's true colours....and it is magic! I paint pieces of the work at a time, say the leaf, before moving on to another area. I take care not to touch an adjacent area of the work as the water (with paint) will run into the next area which I don't want to happen.

Darkening the Painting: I leave the painting for a few minutes to settle while it dries and then I may touch areas up with a darkening colour if it needs it. All I do is hold the pencil and wet the tip with a wet brush, blot as before and then paint in the colour, blending as I go.

Lines on My Work: I also may chose to draw in areas of the plant but not colour them..... This is something I like to do when I think it suits the piece. I then line my work, very carefully and this must be done when the painting is dry, including the part that is drawn but not painted. Once it is very dry, after an hour or so, I gently erase any lead pencil lines. Then I sign it of course!

One day I want to exhibit my work and sell some pieces.

Pink Ladies

Here are three watercolours that I have completed today - obviously it is a pink day!!!!! There are fairly limited flowers around here at the moment and they all happened to be in shades of pink.... All my paintings are copyright....so please look and enjoy, but do not copy....thanks!!

New Guinea Impatients from our courtyard..... and it is very true of the colours

The beautiful fushias on our balcony - they remind me of ballerinas

The day lillies I bought in a bunch of flowers yesterday

I am quite excited and Lisa from the LSBS would like to purchase some paintings for her parents for Christmas - like me they seem to like the Australian plants. I have been asked before if I sell my paintings but now I feel a bit more confident to do so..... Thanks Lisa

Happy painting everyone.... for more paintings look under the watercolour section on the left.

Love
Carol