Overdue

Ok, a little later than expected, but here are the pieces I brought home from class... umm... not this Monday just gone but the one before!

There were the tiles...


...er... yeah, the one on the right is actually the wrong way round!

And the coasters...


Scott likes that little sunset tile so much that he has claimed it as his own!

The colours of the slips came out much better once the pieces had been glazed clear and re-fired, and the green mixed into the clay of the sunset tile is quite noticeable in the flesh. Although still not the chocolate brown I was expecting, the cocoa is less pink now and more of a... cup of cocoa colour.

And then there was the Ivy vase...


...photographed with my new 8 mega-pixel camera phone! Please tell me you can tell the difference from the other photo's!

I'm quite happy with this piece. My only complaint is that I wish the leaves were slightly less glossy, but I really like how the red has come out. I have no idea why the red comes out patchy and spotty like that, but I knew it would as that was the result on the test glaze plate. So apart from the leaves (which are really not so bad), I think I can class this as a glazing success!

One piece that wasn't so successful though was the plant pot and matching dish...


These pieces came out patchy in quite a different way - there were areas that were completely bare! Apparently dust can stop the glaze from adhering to the clay and my tutor thinks that is what happened here. It was mostly on the inside, but on the outside there were thin patches, which as you can see I had touched up before taking this photo. I was really happy with how the flowers came out though. I like the metallic colour and they look so neat (as in tidy)!

So this Monday coming I will see how this plant pot and dish look the second time round (there was no class this Monday just gone), and also I will get to see Polo and Swanee for the first time after glazing! I have been so nervous about it that I keep dreaming about them! In one dream I got to class and they hadn't even been fired and in another dream I thought Polo's head had broken off but then I realised it wasn't my Polo, it was someone else's polar bear, and then when I looked around the room everyone had made a polar bear! What does it all mean??? Er... probably that I need to change my medication...