Pitcher plant pot

A little tealight holder inspired by my favourtie plants (like the Celphalotus behind) - flameburst nanoglaze plus 4% copper carbonate glazes on flaxclay.

Periodic table installation

Our task today was to pop into the lab to make an installation on the whiteboard with the atomic pebbles. Little did I know that not all whiteboards are magnetic! So our mission was not successful but thinking on our feet we decided to potter off to Ikea to see if they might have a magnetic board ( and a bread board as ours has warped), however they had neither and we further poottled down to Office World where we got an enormous magnetic white board in the sale! So hot footing it back to the garden we started out with Mendeleev's periodic table - N even got out the spirit level! Then I had a go at the Periodic Arch of the Elements just managing to get some photos before the sun left the garden. Then of course we barbecued!

Dr Hitchman & the saracenias

Tonight we had a delightful dinner at Zizzi's in Leamington SPa where we had gone a-hunting trousers (which were eventually successfully purchased!) - we had pollo prosciutto and pork belly - delicious. But what was exciting was that on the walls was a frieze depicting the great and the good of yesteryear, who had been involved in the Spa centres of Leamington. The saracenias caught my eye, though the slightly ghoulish paintings were also interesting. Dr Hitchman, along with Dr Jephson who has a park named after him just down the road from the restaurant, was a philanthropist helping the poor of the town. The park now houses a rather nice subtropical greenhouse, so perhaps that is the link to the beautiful plants depicted. Have a look at The Bench Project for a brilliant bench just outside the greenhouse!

Dachshund UN

We had a super half an hour this morning visiting the Dachshund UN which was set up outside the IKON gallery in Birmingham. The dachshunds had come from all over the country and we chatted with some very proud owners - there were even parties interested in buying dachshunds getting email addresses off owners! But the stars were definitely the charismatic dogs - Jordon was having a jolly good discussion, while Pakistan looked like he could nod off at any moment! We got a sneaky peak behind the scenes too!

They're all truffles Snowy....

A couple of weekends ago Mum took me down to Stratford to make truffles, as her second in command for a very lovely b'day pressie from D. We had a brilliant time shaping truffles, learning about chocolate, rolling the truffles in all kinds of good stuff and eating far too much delicious chocolate! It was a great outing - these little guys, a pressie for my b'day from N, came too and soon were lost in a truffle forest!

Afterwards we drove over to Hay on Wye where we found our husbands ensconced in a bar watching a thrilling rugby match, Wales won, which made the bar a very happy place! We had a super dinner at the Swan Bistro at the Hay Hotel and the following day a thorough browsing through the many book shops - I managed to restrict myself to just one on algae this time round! Lunch at the cafe in Richard Booth's bookshop rounded off a superb weekend.

Hazelnut meringue cake

For today I have made a firm favourite - a hazelnut meringue cake! Exceedingly yummy and I think most of it has been scoffed by my co-workers whilst I have been setting up for the Big Bang at the NEC tomorrow! (We'll be at stand 91 if you happen to be popping by!)

A quiet weekend in Bath

Six months ago we got married - the time has flown by! We decided to make a little celebration and went to Bath for the weekend - lots of lovely food (perhaps a little too much) and plenty of meanderings around the town. The sun shone, which was an added bonus! On Saturday we did all the tourist hot spots - the Pulteney Bridge, the Circus and the Royal Crescent, while on Sunday, with the Bath half marathon in full swing (meaning we couldn't escape even if we wanted to), we went to the new Thermae baths which was magnificent and then had to call in on the original ones later on.

My task at the weekend, apart from glueing lots of magnets to the atomic pebbles, was at last to put these 'bacteria plates' through the kiln to apply the transfers. The diagram is sourced from 'An introduction to the bacteria' circa 1950. It shows the profile of various types of bacterial colonies - which is rather fascinating! I also thought it might be fun for cake cutting, though they're just side plate sized. 

atomic discovery

In my meanderings looking at atoms I also found various websites detailing when they were all 'discovered'. Fascinating to see that the alchemists and gentlemen scientists of previous centuries regularly made discoveries and even in the great ages of science the rate seems to be proceeding just the same.

a periodic table

All the atomic pebbles I have been making over the last month have now successfully made it through both firings - Carbon got a little stuck - thanks heavens for batt wash! I am delighted with how they have turned out! So I have made a little arrangement of the pebbles to look like the very familiar periodic table of Dmitri Mendeleev (1869) on the dining table.The different sizes are in proportion to their atomic radii and the number of 'dots' represent the number of electrons per atom. Its fascinating to see the difference between Fluorine (9) and Francium (87). N was quite surprised at how small the noble gases get with all their electron (on the right hand side) compared with the alkali metals (on the left hand side)  There are 99 atoms represented here as this is as many as I could get data on for the atomic radius - there are approximately 120 atoms in total, though some estimate more. The black ones, before anyone asks, represent atoms that are artificially prepared - more details later. The next step is to attach (superglue) some magnets to them all so I can make an installation (albeit briefly) on the lab whiteboard!

Raspberry & lime cake

fresh from the oven - tonight's creation - too hot to tuck into yet! but smells fantastic!

Sometime later: N has demolished a large protion of it already - I hope we can have some tomorrow night with custard for pudding!

The recipe was adapted from a BBC Good Food recipe - using 250g raspberries and no drizzle as I forgot to buy extra limes. 

Alternative periodic tables

This morning I unloaded the kiln and then swiftly refilled it with a second batch of atoms for the final glaze firing. So I got thinking about how I might align them - the obvious way of course will be to represent the periodic table with which we are all familiar. But there must be alternatives - and boy there are - many more than I expected! The internet database of periodic tables is an amazing resource and I think its going to take me some time to have a look through and choose (by what criteria I don't know) some to make. There are many I like but this ElemenTree looks like you could use it as a cake stand, which is amusing me this morning!

Made in the Middle exhibition now on at MAC

These were glass disks by Stuart Akroyd on the wall at the exhibition - very beautiful, this photo really doesn't do them justice at all!

Snowdrops at Staunton Hall

We had a super weekend with all the Mums and Dads visiting Staunton Hall - which only opens once in every four years to show off their banks of snowdrops and aconites in aid of the local church. It was super cold but beautiful, bright and sunny! And of course there was cake and tea too!!

Crowns

Fresh from the kiln - some dinky little crowns - now do I add lustre or not?

Bacteria timelapse

Here's a link to a higher resolution vid on youtube.

We're gearing up to do How clean is your mouth? at the NEC's science event for youngsters - The Big Bang on 15th March. As well as looking at plaque bacteria we're also preparing posters and video displays, which I hope will include this one. Its been devilishly hard to make work - the agar kept drying out - but finally it looks like we have something, though as Mr H says its not really thrilling - I'll have to add some stills I think for a longer sequence with a bit more pizazz!

balloon bowl & stand up teapot

I've had these sat on the side for a couple of days - the results of a little experiment or two. The blue balloon bowl was moulded over a balloon - in fact there were originally two but only one made it through the firing (my first major catastrophe involving the buying of a new kiln shelf!) The others are a  little teapot which is 3D and can stand on its own and a little teacup. I tried making some new glazes for all these which haven't been as successful as I might have liked but its all a grand experiment!

Bacteria brooches

I have managed to create some badges from the watch glasses that I posted about recently. I'm fine pleased - now available in the shop!

Claire Hutchings at the Kitchen Garden Cafe

 

On Monday night we had a real treat - we wen to the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath to sample the cooking of Masterchef runner up Claire Hutchings. It was great to see ( and taste) local talent on her own patch! We had a leek & potato volute with caviar, cucumber cubes and leek match sticks, followed by smoked mackerel with soy jelly, sesame brittle, celeriac and avocado, then braised ox cheek with truffle mash, chestnut mushrooms, roasted onions, bacon and celeriac. Dessert was lime cheesecake with a basil syrup and dark chocolate sorbet, and there were even mini cupcakes and coconut truffles (like mini bounties) with tea and coffee! What a great evening - even if it was a tad chilly on the way home!!

Cranberry yoghurt cake

A little friday night baking - cranberry yoghurt cake/muffins a la Clothide

Some dinky little butterflies fresh from the kiln

Atomic pebbles

I have been reflecting on the molecular pebbles and thinking towards making atomic pebbles guided by actual/estimated atomic size and the number of electrons and which orbitals they might be in, ultimately aiming for a full periodic table. In the course of my Internet wanderings/wonderings I have found some great resources: Web elements have a nice spherical representation of atomic size on a graph (click on scatter plot under the periodic table) and Crystal Maker have a fine periodic table even! The chemistry consortium have a brilliant guide to 'electron habitat' (click on an individual element for its details) - have a look at Astatine as an example.

Bacteria watchglasses

I have been having a bit of fun with illustrations inspired by the book An introduction to the bacteria and its cousin An introduction to the algae, both circa 1950.  Having made little porcelain watchglass shaped discs I have used transfers from the lovely Fotoceramic people to apply the drawings to the discs. They look like I'm peering at them down a high powered microscope, not quite getting the whole organism in view.

Network node number nine

In the latest firings I also made earth network node #9 which is imprinted with a plastic spides - you can make out the eyes on the picture and used some gravel from Helsinki - collected by Ada, Laura and Erich. They mentioned that there was even elemental copper near the collection site! The gravel was a pink crystalline type, quite different from the other samples I have had so far.

Mini jelly baby cakes

N fancied cake last night so we did some miniture baking - tiny cupcakes in petit four cases with a mini swirl of icing and some jelly babies on the top - they're mini ones too! Their destination (the ones N didn't eat) was the lab for Kat's final day.

Time for tea?

I have been having fun with porcelain again! Here are a few of the latest creations - gearing up for Valentine's day mostly, but also some ideas from New Orleans!

earth network

The earth network was convieved a little while ago as an exploration of how soil types could be used to glaze little thumb pots, which I used to make nodes for a network. The connections (edges) I have puzzled over and wondered about using the connections to me, as creator/curator, with the people who donated soil or the time when the samples/donations of soil came to me. But I have settled on using the geological definitions/types of rocks at the location where the samples were taken.

This is fairly easy for the UK as the British Geological Survey have a fabulous database that gives information on both superficial and bedrock deposits. The samples are most likely from the superficial band but I could only find limited information for my international nodes, plus the connections were simpler for the bedrock geology, so I have gone for that. Above I have made coloured nodes from the geological maps too, and once I print it out I can put the porcelain nodes on top. The picture below show which nodes are where - for those with nodes your number is on the bottom! The network was drawn using cytoscape and the nodes were made in photoshop.

Happy New Year

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.