and more

Four seasons: summer. 65cm

close-ups

Four seasons: silver birch in spring. 63cm

This is an intial line-up of the "green on greens" or "altered greens" - part of damage control when faced with the "green horrors". However, it is coming together with lots and lots of refiring and I plan to add another 4. They look best with 20cm separation from each other but I wasn't able to take a good photo of this at the time.

A random grouping straight out of the kiln

Four seasons: winter - silver birch with lowering sky 64cm

Symbolic landscapes: falling leaves 62cm

green horrors

Just as I was about to begin glazing the suite of bisqued pots, my sculpture tutor came and told me I was making a big mistake following my carefully laid out CERAMIC glazing plan and I should do them all one colour. This had been an original idea of mine but I dismissed it subsequently because I felt it would look uninteresting.

I glazed 7 of them and how I hate them! Although there are subtle differences between them, there isn't sufficient interest to capture the viewer in my opinion. Also because the pots have shrunk about 15% in the firing, they don't have quite the sculptural impact I was aiming for. So, watch this space for last minute (3 weeks until assessment and SITE) alterations!

A sneak preview

It's been a long and arduous task but ten of the mamas have been bisqued and four more are almost complete.

These will become part of my final installation for SITE - so many ponderables to sort out as to glazing yet but lots and lots of ideas.

More experiments

The following three images are of my second horizontally glazed vessel, but reglazed partly horizontally and vertically and then refired vertically. The original version is the fourth image. Have I killed it?? Or are the ensuing results, which were applied in the manner of Jackson Pollock (pour/flick/thick wads of colour, randomly)an improvement? It offers something else and I added some blue and red to the mix, another experiment as if I needed to do any more at this late stage in the year, but I rather like it. The first horizontally fired vessel has also been refired in the same manner but needs another application of green glaze to bring it together. More on that later!

Last laminated vessels

This vase and the trio below are the last in this range of vessels using laminated clays. I feel the idea has been explored as far as it can so it is with some relief that I now say goodbye to them! They were fired the day before my experiment with the 'pot on its back' and now I feel this new discovery has more potential to take further.