Wednesday 28 August 2013

Sharing my love for clay and painting....

As I closed my eyes for the last time before I went to sleep the darkness of the inside of my eyelids softly began to brighten as the light of the images in my mind began to wonder exploring the events of  my journey in clay.... it's like a love story. You know that feeling of falling in love and wanting to spend every waking moment with that special someone. Well it's the same for me with my clay and the decorating of each piece. My mind does not stop conjuring up ideas, designs, colour combinations even when I send my self off to sleep... Is it just me or do you feel the same way about your work with clay or any craft for that matter?

My husband works long hours and I have a lot of on-line friends but not a great deal of friends that live close by that I can visit or that they can visit me. Sooo you can imagine my excitement when a friend moved to South Australia with her family and we decided to catch up.... Yippeeee! So anyway I had the chance to share my love of clay and painting with my friend and her children yesterday and we had a lovely time... Below are a couple of photos of what they painted.... 
    This is the set up....
These to gorgeous Gal's... 
Charlotte and her Mummy Amanda...
                                Little Flynn also had a go...
 Oh and Ms Charlotte certainly knows how to multi task with a Tim Tam (Chocolate biscuit) in one hand and a paint brush in the other! LOL... 
              Pendants and tea cup and saucer and a little bowl...
                                      

It was so much fun and I can not wait to glaze and fire their stash of pretties.... :)

I have been working on a few things this week, not particularly with clay itself but with the business side of it. I have finally taken some photos to a printer and I am organising business cards. I'm a wee bit excited to see the result. So fingers crossed for a great outcome! I will post a photo of it when they arrive... :)

Oh I did work on this set, and guess what? They are for me :) .. They are carved beakers and I have graded the under glaze. They will be clear glazed and I can't wait to see them finished... 
                                      
One other thing is in the works but until it is confirmed I will hold that under my hat so as not to Jinx myself ! LOL.... But stay tuned I will fill you in later as soon as I can....

So with my eyes open now and the day in full swing, off I will go to visit my other Mud friends over at Mud Colony.... Come and join us and say hi... Have a great week everyone! :)

Face Book Link : https://www.facebook.com/anniejeanspottery
                               







Wednesday 21 August 2013

I'm EXCITED Adriana!! Te he ;) ...

It's Thursday and Mudcolony is open! what have you been up to in your studio this week?  
I have been slowly getting my routine back, my family have all gone home (sniff sniff) :( and I have been painting and throwing and finishing orders... :) my new plate project is coming along and one of my pieces the dragonfly plate I showed you just recently has been glazed and it looks lovely! So I am Excited.... 

This is the Dragonfly plate, I'm very happy with the way it turned out... 


       This is my sons new mug that he requested, the colours are lovely...


    The Red tulips and internal colour in the cups is called Romance Red
It is so vibrant I love it...

    This last tea pot with its cups and saucers is off to its new owner interstate, I hope
    They enjoy using it as much as I did making it ! :) 

Below are last blogs pieces glazed... They turned out lovely.... :)




That's it for me this week. I have beakers drying at the moment and the weather is slowing down that process so I have bought them into the warmth of the house to fasten the process and then the trimming will begin... But while I'm here I'm heading to Mudcolony to see what everyone else has been up to . Click on the link and come and visit too, and if you have a clay blog join in and share with us what you have been up to... :) Have a great week everybody and thank you for dropping by! :) 

Facebook Link :  Annie-Jeans Pottery Facebook






Thursday 8 August 2013

New projects...

Winter is well and truly here in Adelaide South Australia. The trees have lost all of their gorgeous brightly coloured leaves and the blue skies have been more grey than blue of late, and the rain has been falling and adding to those cold and dreary colourless days. And with this it has had me craving the beautiful bright colours of Spring and Summer.... Colour makes me smile, lifts my spirit and brightens my day... Colour makes me Happy.... So my new project begins with a little, No, No, No! let's make it a Big splash of COLOUR!!!!

Recently I was admiring another Potters
work by the name of Mark Campbell. He was creating bowls and
decorating them with a graded colour effect which looked like the sunset. Just gorgeous, and this led me to try something similar but with a twist of my own... Grading the other above bowl with a centre of yellow and then a lime to pale blue as the internal of the bowl and then....
The outside was decorated with a stripe and tulip design.
This being step one of the outside painted process....
              
The next step was the basic outline of the tulips and leaves,
and then the tulips were painted and the colour gradually is layered with slightly varied tones of similar shades of red and orange to create the dimensions of the tulips in the below photo...
                                                
                                          
        
The leaves in the above photo were next and below the outline in a fine line of black is added to finish off the design...
                                                 
                                          
        
And here it is turned up the right way and completed...
                                          
This next bowl was painted with the yellow, orange and red colours depicting a sunset...
                                          
So that the feature design is not hindered in any way by the background, I draw and cut out a basic stencil of what ever I am to be painting on. a spray of water fixes it to the piece prior to starting the graded colour effect. Then when the colour is painted I remove the stencil and start the painting of the feature....
                                           
And here he is here nearly complete...
Finished...
And the bottom...
And here is another....
                                                                                         
   So there you go, my Big splash of colour. Now just to get them through bisque firing and onto their final clear glaze firing. I so can not wait to see how much the colour will Pop when they are clear glazed...
I would like to give a big thank you to my Dear brother Dale for the photos of me painting. Dale is intellectually impaired and I have had the pleasure of having him stay with me for the last three weeks. We have had a great time together, and I think he did an awesome job taking these photos...
Here he is with his bowl that we worked on together, what fun we had making it! :)
 And here it is painted... Love it.... 
                        
And here we are together on our day out, with a visit
to Adelaide's Mt Lofty Look out...
We had a wonderful time together...
Love you Dale... xoxo
                                 
Thank you for stopping by. I'm heading over to Mudcolony  to see what everyone else has been up to this week in their studios, come on over and visit too.... Have a great week ... :)

My Facebook Link.... Annie-Jeans Pottery