Make your own Beach Huts

First, roll out your clay and cut out lots of little beach huts.
Then roll out some more clay, imprint on to it your design and press it into a large round mould.
Stick your little beach huts all round the edge.

When the bowl has dried out, pop into the kiln and fire for the first time.
Take out of kiln and apply your different coloured glazes, and pop back into kiln for second firing.

Take out of kiln when done and HeyPresto! You have your Beach Huts Bowl - all bright and summery.

Don't forget to attach your little home-made shells which you made earlier.

And if you sell enough of these you could one day own your own real life Beach Hut. What colour would yours be and .... more importantly, what would you name it?

I can't decide between this gorgeous bright yellow one with its name straight out of Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day" ...

or this wonderful aqua colour with a name that surely sums up the gentle art of sitting in the warmth, gazing out to sea with permanent access to a kettle and teabags!

Do you have one? Do you want one? What colour? What's its name?

Tricks of the Trade

So these are some of the larger pieces I took out of the kiln last week.
Some of you may remember this post from just before Christmas when I showed you my advent calendar made by my daughter which contained various cheap or found everyday objects which I could use to make patterns in soft clay.

She did an excellent job and one of the things she included has become my all-time favourite pottery tool.
You see the funny red pattern which forms the border round these two pieces?
It reminds me of the little plastic 'people' from the game of Cluedo - are they still shaped like that? Bet they've changed ... everything does. Anyway, rows and rows of Miss Scarlets is what I think of when I see this.

And I'd like to say I carved it all out individually in a mammoth painstaking way, but actually I just pressed into the clay with the said 'tool'.
What is it? Is it some sort of salad server or something? Or a badly designed soup spoon!

Anyway, whatever it is, it does the trick.
Do you have any tricks of your trade/craft/hobby?

In Glorious Colour

I took delivery of these new glaze colours a few weeks ago and just hoped to goodness that the colours turned out ok once they were fired. What qualifications do I need to get the great job of giving glaze colours their names - or paint colours for that matter? Top left then going clockwise we have : Crimson, Triton, Pacific, Poppy, Cold Star (??) and British Racing Green.

Years ago when the kids were small and insisted on going to MacDonald's, they used to get a pink gloopy milkshake that looked exactly like this Crimson glaze. They nearly burst a blood vessel trying to suck it up through the straw! (The milkshake, not the glaze).

Anyway - all is well and the colours are brilliantly bright and in-your-face, which is what I wanted. Needed a change from doing patchwork hearts, so did these flowery ones instead.

Haven't attached the wire hangers yet - just wanted to get the photos done before the light faded.

Russian folk-art seems to be all the rage at the moment, on wrapping paper, tins, greeting cards, everywhere - so thought I'd join in and make a few hanging Russian Dolls, and am really pleased with them.
I'll show you the larger (more serious) pieces which I also took out of the kiln today in my next post. Hope you like!