Winter Plates - Display

Yet again I’ve got building work going on today (!) and since I can’t make any pots I thought I’d do a quick blog update. I’ve been meaning to blog this for ages in fact, but got distracted. Back in August (in the middle of summer!) I was making a couple of side plates on the theme of ‘Winter’. You might remember the post. This was for a promotional photo idea for an Etsy team which I’m a member of, called the UK Clay Users or UCU for short. The idea was to design and make plates that could be arranged as a wintery themed wall display.

As you can see in the photo above the collection of plates look really good together – we all seemed to colour coordinate! And the winter theme really does show through in the display. The photo and the idea itself is all thanks to Jude Winnal of VanillaKiln on Etsy – a big thanks Jude for all your hard work! And all our plates were made available for sale in our Etsy shops: mine is still available here, along with a smaller sister plate with a different decoration. To find out more about each individual plate and shop links, here’s a link to the UCU blog post. UCU is also now on Pinterest too.

Winter Landscape - Side Plates

Winter Landscape Side Plate

Back in July I was invited to take part in a promotional plate display idea as a part of UK Clay Users on Etsy. I don’t normally make plates. Large flat pieces tend to have a high mortality rate at various stages of making – they’re prone to cracking while drying or warping in the kiln, which makes them a costly item to make. However, since this was a ‘one-off’ idea, I thought I’d have a go at throwing a couple of small side plates and see how things go!

Winter Landscape Side Plate - Detail

Well yesterday I finally sent off my submission, which you can see in the photos above. This plate measures about 15cm across (or 6 inches). It’s made from stoneware clay and glazed using two different glazes: a white gloss and a blue/black glaze, which I’ve overlapped to create the idea of a landscape. The theme for the promotional idea was 'Winter' so I’ve called this one ‘Winter Landscape’. The other plate I made at the same time has been decorated using the same two glazes but with a slightly different approach. I’m planning to put this second plate into my Etsy shop available for sale in the near future.

Throwing Plates on a Bat

Freshly Thrown Plates on Bats

In the meantime though here are a couple of photos of both plates being thrown. As you can see they’re quite small – this helped to reduce the risk of cracking and warping. But it also means they’re very cute and perfect for just a couple of grapes or a snack as you can see in the last photo below!

Winter Landscape Side Plate with Grapes