Lots of waffle and photos - it's the virus talking

In my boredom, (due to illness, obviously, because who would normally have time to be bored?) I decided to try to finish that portrait of Scott when he was a kid. It still looks absolutely nothing like him and I'm not sure if it ever will. In fact, I think it looks more like my brother Robert when he was a kid. Strangely enough, whenever I see my brother Robert I always end up calling him Scott, and Scott, Robert, which he hates, but that's another story.



Scott tells me "It looks nothing like me" and in my mind I'm thinking "Yeah, tell me something I don't know". I'm getting really frustrated with this. So, I'm not a portrait artist. So what. There's a reason why I chose clay over pencils.

Talking of clay, I ordered some samples to try out the texture, colour, strength, ease of use, that sort of thing.


I only managed to try out one of them before I got ill. The one that looks red has a wide firing range, and comes out black in high temperatures and brown in lower temperatures. I wanted to see what the brown would be like, so I made a little something, nothing exciting (and I can't even be bothered to photograph it) so I will find out the colour in January when I get to fire it. I didn't really like the texture though. It was very coarse, more so than crank, and not very plastic, like garden soil with road grit in it! Ok, slight exaggeration! But they do two other clays the same colour and firing range but different textures, so I'll have to try them out too.

I've been having lots of ideas for my clay. More sgraffito mostly. I wanted a rose design that I could carve, but I didn't want to copy Leanne's beautiful design. So looked up some rose images on google and tried to draw a simple rose outline that I thought could work if it was carved on clay. I suppose I won't really know until I've tried it, but here it is, in my little sketch book.


And just to remind you (or just to show off, one last time) here is my vase that Leanne carved for me, with her rose design, now filled with porcelain roses.


Isn't it beautiful? Anyway, I digress...

I drew another little sketch in my sketch book, which I hope will translate well in to sgraffito, but I'm not sure, it might be too detailed. Again, I won't know until I try it. If it comes out well I'll probably use this image a lot. It makes me think of Marianne, pining for her Willoughby (Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen).


While I was looking through my sketch book I came across some ideas that I never did get round to painting. I went through a bit of a phase with triptychs... I only painted the top one of these designs. Remember Nanna's Bulrushes?



You see, I was already testing colours. I think they could be fun to paint too. Who knows, one day... Just like that portrait of Scott... one day! I'd made up my mind to give up on that, but you never know... Perhaps I should just start it all over again? I don't know, it's so frustrating.

Y'know, Mona's and Angela's drawings/paintings have been making me want to get my pastel pencils out and try drawing an animal, but I had soo much trouble drawing Scott's hair, what chance do I have of drawing something covered in fur?!

So that's my waffle for today. I must say, I prefer them with cinnamon and ice cream, but we can't have everything we want. I'll leave you with a couple of photos of Pete's pot, from class. This man has so much patience when he's decorating his pottery, and it pays off!