Linda, pull your finger out!

We do use some strange expressions don't we? Well, my laziness has continued, and I really do need to pull my finger out - although I'm not quite sure where from! I seem to be lacking. Lacking energy, motivation, inspiration. Lacking confidence mainly, when it comes to clay. In between feeling anxious and depressed I've just been sleeping, although I actually did some house work on Saturday and I have no idea where the desire to do that came from - or where it went afterwards!

I am no further along with Fred the head, but I did actually go to class this week. (Yay!) Yes, I dragged myself out of the house and finished off glazing all the pieces that have been waiting to be high fired. Hopefully I will have some good results to show you next week when they come out of the kiln.

In the mean time those stupid blue bowls are determined to be ugly. I've glazed them at least 3 times now (I've lost count) and they still look ugly. I want to just smash them and start again. Surely, you can only glaze something so many times until you have more glaze than clay?! I tried to photograph their ugliness, but even the camera couldn't bear it, and kept making them look better than they do!

Another piece that I reglazed was the white vase. I was hoping that the design I painted on the vase with iron oxide before glazing (and then changed my mind about) would be covered by the glaze, but unfortunately even after a second glazing it is still visable.


This is actually the same photo as before, because... well, it looks the same so I couldn't see the point in photographing it again!

As for the jug... oh the jug! Well, as you may already have read, first the handle cracked and fell off... then the jug cracked when I was adding a new handle... then I fell over when I was carrying the jug... hahaha, yes it's true! I could have put my arm out to break my fall, but I didn't want to drop the jug! So instead I just sort of... landed in a heap, holding the precious jug up in the air! Oh my! I just couldn't stop laughing at myself for ages! Well anyway, then when I was touching up some of the coloured slip before firing, a big chip fell off! Then I had to scrape back the clay to try to make that part look even, and touch it up with the coloured slip again, and finally it was fired! And it came out in one piece! But then a smaller chip fell off while I was glazing it. The jug is doomed I tell ya! Doomed!


One item that I am very happy with is the piece which I cared least about! Quite a while ago I received some clay samples and I just quickly made a piece (which I didn't even bother photographing at the time) to try out one of the clays. It's described as a black clay (although red before firing), but the firing range is really wide and at high temperatures it goes black and at lower temperatures it goes brown. I wanted to see what shade/tone(?) of brown it would be. It has come out a beautiful chocolate brown colour. The inside, which looks darker, has been glazed with clear glaze.


This particular clay was extremely coarse - more so than the crank I had used previously - but the colour is available in two other textures, so if I was to buy it I would definitely go for a finer one. Of course, I wasn't given any sort of price guide with the sample, so it's probably really expensive!

So, that's what I've been up to lately, which isn't much. I mentioned previously that I have been to a couple of exhibitions, so I will have to upload my photos to share with you. In the mean time I must pull my finger out and try out those new tools!