Gingerbread crawfish!

At the Saints game

Merry Christmas from New Orleans!

Christmas colours

As we're off to see the Laughing Geos at Christmas we had a little parcel opening in LB last weekend. Nick gave me a lovely selection of new colours (pink, clear sky, British racing green, lemon zest and cherry) for staining porcelain from Scarva and I got a chance to try them out (in a one step firing!) this week. Super exciting - and they all look lovely, though the pink seems not to have worked, which is quite normal. Sometimes the composition of the clay stops the colour from coming out.

Sprouts & gingerbreadmen

I opened up the kiln  again this week to see some lovely creations. Above some more experimental glazes - this time on some little cruets - I think they look remarkably like sprouts. And then to continue the Christmassy theme there were gingerbreadmen in porcelain - complete this time!

Christmas cupcakes

Another fabulous (though fiddly) cutter from kitbox - I'm loving these snowflakes, I had a hand though from Mr H!

pink porcelain

Yesterday I was at a conference in London and managed to squeeze in a quick trip to see the Grayson Perry The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman exhibition at the British Museum. I had been tempted to go after see a few of his pieces on BBC4's History of Ceramics series. But I didn't expect to be totally blown away! The ceramics themselves were fantastic - such depth - both of meaning and decoration/craftsmanship. Layer upon layer of different techniques - scraffito, slips, glazes, transfers, casts, lustres...all on one piece. And the juxtapositions of the museum collections and his objects fitted perfectly - working very well with the title of the exhibition. Highly thought provoking - an incredibly intelligent man.

While I was away Nick was in charge of the kiln, so it was very lovely to be able to open it up to some bits and bobs when I eventually got home. I had been trying out some colour blends with pink and yellow porcelains. I couldn't resist taking a picture this morning with the early morning light coming through the kitchen window.