Here's my lovely jon at our stand at The Big Cake Show, Exeter, it's not a show we would have picked to do but we won best stand in show at The Big Food Show last October. The prize was a free stand and with accommodation provided by some lovely friends it was a cheap show to do. Lucky for us as the crowds weren't mad so with covering the cost of people sorted every sale was profit, unfortunately not everyone was so lucky and a few stands had big loses, particularly the stands selling food. If it's not sold they have no choice but too dump or give away. There was a lovely bakery stand near ours from Teignmouth and they arrange every day for unsold goods to be collected for the homeless, what a great idea!

It wasn't all work, we had a few runs along side an estuary in Exminister, beautiful coast on one side and a bird nature reserve on the other, loaded up with all sorts of birds I didn't recognise and one particularly lovely heron, he was massive. 

Then home and back to a small workshop at my house. These three lovely lades spent the best part of a day making their own ceramic wreath once I'd showed them the various techniques needed. They had a great time and I love their final pieces. It's great to see the techniques interrupted by other people and has given me a few ideas for when I next get chance to make a few decorative pieces.

Here's one of the piece's just finished, they are all drying now in the pottery. Part of the deal is that I will fire and oxide them and then they are ready for posting so not only did they learn the process but they get their piece to keep. Bargain course with lunch thrown in too! 

i've got a large order on and one of the requests was for a red glaze, I'm not normally keen on reds as they can look too man made but I found one I like and here it is sitting with the beige and oatmeal glazes, a great contrast.

I like mixing up the colours/glazes/shapes - personally I think it makes for a more interesting look but everyone is different!

These little guys are being re-fired as I think they could do better with the finish, ready to send off to a lovely restaurant in Cornwall, Number 6 in Padstow, owned by Paul Ainsworth. He's had a load already and wanted more little jugs. They are individual sauce pots, or milk pots, or dressing, madly I only have one in my kitchen, think I'll nick a few spares for me!

Another piece from the workshop, loads of detail layered up on here.

These beautiful photo's have been taken by a food stylist called Laura Field, no surprise she works for lots of people and she's made by bowls look amazing! 

Loving the feeling of spring arriving this week, picked these from the garden.

I've been making work specific for an order which is great and below are my more simple photo's of other examples they have asked for. It's a resturant by the sea and so my Cornish ware glaze fits perfect.

And whilst all of this is going on I've been sneaking into the garden and started the spring clean up. We've totally changed the gardens layout and now the beds and paths are kind of sorted it's moving plant time! Loved doing this in the sunshine this week.

And isan't social media amazing! Visiting another resturant next week with a view to an order after seeing my photo's on twitter! Happy days! 

It's been a busy week this week but lots done and lots achieved. I've kept up the photography and there's lots of examples here. I've started playing with the photo's on the website, that's not going so great as I'm not clear on the layout but I'm roping in Jon to help today and we'll get back in touch with the web designers too. It will get sorted but I think we both know now that we will sell less designs on the site. 

I want to encourage people to talk to us rather than click buttons, we can give so many choices of sizes and colours and styles but these can't be fully shared in an on line shop. Below is one of my favourite photo's of the week, the sun flooded the conservatory late one afternoon.

Above and below are my medium sized bowls, breakfast, soup or dessert bowls, the two below were the prize for a competition on twitter which ran this week, I'll be posting them out on Monday, once I've got them wrapped up. The glaze really is this light textured blue, it's great on bowls but I find it too strong on plates.

Love the detail you can see here and this really reflects how wonderful this clay is, it's like soap stone to the touch.

Below is a new reactive glaze I'm trying. These glazes are great in the variety they offer but not the glaze to offer people who want the same piece over and over, the surface changes depending on vertical or horizontal, thickness and then there's the positioning in the kiln itself.

Another photo shoot image below, I wish I was better at photography and food styling as what I see other people do with our work is really amazing, I'll just have to keep trying. I'm popping into town this week so I'll buy some fresh ingredients and carry on playing.

I haven't really done many photo's with Jon's bards but I was happy with this one, I'm setting up a twitter competition for Jon next to get him followers, the prize will be one of his oak chopping/serving boards.

This coming week I'll be throwing and turning everyday with some glazing in-between. I've got two orders to fill and prep starts for the show's coming up. The kiln is cooling right now so I'll open that Monday morning and hopefully have some more new work to photo. I have spent the last couple of weeks sorting out shapes for mugs, jugs and cups and I think I'm sorted now so I need to glaze sets together.

I'm also hoping to run four or five times, have a nice shop/lunch with a friend and do some gardening,  whilst it's now warm enough to garden it's too wet!

I've been busy making this week but also doing more photography, I'm hoping to build up my skills in this area to get the website looking a bit better. I'm planning to do the individual shots this week and clarify the glaze finishes too, up to now I've been playing really - have a look!

 

Cross section with lots of different shapes and glazes, I like the comparision of the glazed surfaces and myself I have a real miss - match of glazes in my pottery larder.

 

From large ceramic trays to individual sauce pots and they come in different shapes, over time we'll see which shapes and glazes are most popular.

 

I've put together condiment sets before but I like the idea of using the tray so whilst all your dips are invessels your bread sticks or crackers, carrot sticks etc can sit losely in the tray, wrapping around the dishes, that could look really effective, I'll try that out myself!

 

Set of three milk jugs, again playing with shapes but I do love this blue glaze.
And as I already said I like the contrasts, as evident below.

 

Whilst some people like sets!

Like I said, been busy throwing this week!

I've sort of had a day off today, in that I didn't do any throwing! 

I did however do a whole load of glazing, enough for the next two kiln loads as I have a load of little jug examples to sort and a load of breakfast bowls. I'm also testing two new glazes. This is always a bit difficult as it's the thickness of the glaze that matters and this does differ glaze to glaze and on vertical or horizontal surfaces.

I spent some time today playing with photographs, trying to get a few images to add to the web site. There's new products to add and I just need to get better at this as I'm relying on other people's photo's a lot, not good!

I like the little jugs above, the blue glaze came out a little darker than expected but the overall finish is good, I do pot bellied ones too, hopefully more photo's to follow.

Here's a few more, comparisons of glazes and below, shapes, sizes and textures. 

With everything, this is showing me more practise needed! I've left the light tent up so I can practise more regularly. I'll make it my aim to photo every time I empty the glaze kiln, that should help and get me photographing two to three times a week.

Glaze kiln firing samples now for a restaurant I'm really looking forward to visiting!

So, after just a year of thinking about throwing full time, making a business from it, it seems to be moving ahead. It's great to have full days to throw and amzing to see how much can be achieved when your not stopping and starting for other jobs etc. It amazes me how quickly the days go but I know part of that is the day dreaming I'm doing whilst throwing and if not that the books that are being read to me from my kindle. That said, I love throwing!

Practising techniques continues, here a lidded jar, I love the pot bellied shape, just got to get my proportions right on the lid and the level it sits in. Next step is teapots, I'm doing research to figure out shapes I like and how I want them to look.

This is the kiln's control panel, it monitors the kiln for me, I'm testing the pyometer at the moment to see how accurate it is as I think sometimes it over fires, to do that you use 'cones' which will curl over at a given temperture, so you do lower, on and above 'cones'.

I've been asked what's behind me in the pottery and it's one of my favourite paintings that Jon completed, 'Snow on the Long Myund'. It's a large oil painting. There's been a lot of snow recently and we ran up the Myund yestarday. If you don't know it the Long Myund is a high area of undualting hills, they locally call it 'Little Swizterland'.

And below, the melted cones, the first set are from a biscuit firing and that looks spot on but the second set are from a glaze firing and I think the kiln is firing too high, I've changed the setting, refired over nite so we'll see when I open it if it makes much difference!

 

I'm getting loads of things finished and ready and teaching myself a few things aswell. I've never really focused before on developing new shapes but having to make jugs and cups has changed all of that, I've tried a few different shapes but for jugs I like the pot belly shapes seen here.  Not too bad to throw but difficult to turn, like everything it's practise, more practise needed! 

Plates prove that, I hadn't thrown a plate for years but taught myself over Xmas and now I'm really pleased with them.

Same goes for cups and saucers, the kiln is firing now with lots of cups, need to sort out what sizes work but I've sorted the shapes.

And here is a close up from a plate of our logo, this is to show chefs how their brand could look on the front of a plate if they want it, lots of tests happened before I got it right but I love this! 

And now we're in a position where the hobby has become the day job! Happy days!