Buttons and Bags Revisited

A few weeks ago I took some photos of this lovely clutch bag made by fellow islander Gill from Gillian Chapman Felts in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. This beautiful bag is one of a series Gill has designed using pure Jacobs fleece. The material has been hand-felted using a wet felting technique and the finished bag features one of my raku buttons in white and mushroom crackle glazes. I think the subtle tones of the wool and the subtle glazes on the button complement each other beautifully – and it’s always so nice to see my buttons being used in other people’s work. You can visit Gill’s Folksy shop here.

I have to say taking these photos proved a bit of a challenge for me! These days I’m fairly used to taking photos of my ceramics and have some inkling about what light will work for which glaze or what angle looks best for a certain shape. But until this shoot I didn’t realize how tricky it was to photograph textiles! The lighting needed for textiles to remain true to life in terms of colour is totally different from ceramics: or at least so it seemed on the day! So trying to get both the fabric and the button in proper focus and in true-colour-likeness proved for a long and tricky afternoon. In the end these three photos were the best shots of the day. But you can also see this bag and two others in this same style on Gill’s flickr page here (probably should have taken it to the beach to photograph too!)

A Plate and Two Pears

A couple of weeks ago I found a spare Sunday to paint at last! I decided to spend the day on a simple painting to get back into the swing of things: nothing too complicated or detailed. Still life studies are always useful to get the ideas flowing, especially since they’re easy to set up with anything that happens to be lying around the house. So for a bit of inspiration I chose this little pear sitting on one of my own hand-thrown plain white plates.

After a couple of sketches on paper, I decided to plunge straight into painting on canvas without too much fussing with composition. The canvas is a deep edge 16 x 12 inch. I usually draw a rough outline in charcoal to begin with and then apply a general ‘back colour’ with a big sloshy brush. At this stage I still wasn’t sure what the scheme was going to be, so I just blocked on a base layer using a rough mix of blue cobalt, raw umber and titanium white. I find that blocking the whole canvas with one or two background colours helps to smooth the textured surface which otherwise might show tiny bits of bare white through the painting – it’s so annoying if you miss a bit!

As I got going I realized that my mood was to go VERY simple: not only with the subject (just two pears on a plain white plate), but to be very minimal with the style and colour range too. So the result is quite stylized: an ‘idea’ of a plate and two pears I suppose. It’s quite a calming picture with all that soothing green and because of the large blank, flat areas I think it has an open, spacious feel too. Anyway, I’ve hung it on the wall above the kitchen table for the time being - and it may even turn out to be the beginning of a little series. Here's a close-up cropped shot of the final draft.

Jugs

It’s all about jugs lately! Last week I listed these little white jugs in my Folksy shop. I call them ‘tip’ jugs because they don’t have handles: instead they fit snugly in the palm and the contents are simply tipped out. So they’re perfect for a spot of milk or cream in your tea or coffee. They measure just over 5cm x 5cm and come in three colour ranges: gloss white (listed), a wood ash glaze and a dark tenmoku.At the moment I’ve only listed the white ones, but the others will follow shortly I hope. (click on the pic to go to my shop.)

In the meantime I’ve also been taking lots of photographs of these jugs. As you may have noticed I usually photograph my ceramics against a plain white background. This time I thought I’d also try out some ‘styled’ shots to show these jugs in context and suggest scale. Although I do like the minimalist look of the white glaze against the white background, sometimes it helps to add a bit of colour to illustrate how gorgeous this glaze really is! Anyway, here’s a medley of photos that came out of the ‘shoot’ showing a 'styled' shot and also the wood ash and tenmoku glazes.

Last week I also put together my first gallery in my Flickr account. I’ve been meaning to try something for ages but didn’t know what subject to choose. In the end I chose a theme of ceramic jugs: I thought it would be a good way for me to think about different design features on jugs and be inspired by what others have made. And I’m really pleased with the result. There are so many lovely photos out there with some gorgeous pots. And now I’ve done my first gallery I’m looking forward to having a go at making some more. Here’s a link to my first Flickr gallery, Jugs.

And finally I also had a couple of lovely Folksy Friday features last week. Thanks to Sam for featuring my tip jugs on her blog A Simple Melody and also to Kellie for featuring my buttons on her blog It’s The Little Things. Here’s a couple of screenshots too!

Garlic Festival Finds...

Last weekend my sister Sue and I shared a stall in the Arts and Crafts marquee at the Isle of Wight Garlic Festival. It went very well and although it was hard work we enjoyed ourselves. It was so busy by Sunday afternoon people were still queueing to get into the showground! So I’m pleased we made the decision to go again this year. Yet again my photos of the event were pretty rubbish and out of focus: too preoccupied with manning our stall. So instead I thought I’d blog about my new purchases…

At the festival I found a fabulous stall selling lots of gorgeous vintage tools and garden equipment. I picked up a lovely enamel bowl for my studio, and since I don’t have a sink in there it's perfect for all manner of uses. I’ve already been using it to do a bit of mid-summer cleaning: washing all my work aprons and tea towels which were long overdue. I also bought a pair of tongs from the same stall. These were a bit rusty and dirty to start with, but after a few minutes soaking in WD40 have cleaned up a treat. I haven’t used these yet but I’m sure when it comes to raku firing again they’ll be useful for finding tiny buttons or pendants in all the sawdust. But at just £2 for the bowl and a quid for the tongs I could hardly resist!

Finally I bought this lovely old metal bin with lid and handles for just £8. Not sure what it was originally – maybe it was an old steam cooker or a copper. But I saw it and instantly thought I could make it into a small raku kiln. So I’m really quite excited about it! I’ll have to do some research and draw up some plans on how it might work – but in theory all it needs is some ceramic fibre on the inside and a hole in the back for the burner. But even if it turns out not to be suitable, it’ll still be perfect as a reduction chamber in raku firing (ie; the bin full of sawdust into which the raku pots go when they come straight out of the kiln).

So all in all it was a successful weekend!

(My sister Sue was also tempted to buy some lovely bowls and pots from the same stall for her natural dyeing process. You can see her blog here.)