Pinch Pots

This blog might well be turning into my pottery log.... A new term of my pottery class has started and I had my first go at the humble pinch pot. A very quick and crude method of vestibule-making. A couple in this batch have fingermarks, which I think looked pretty good, I would like to try the same with a simple white and understated glaze.

I'm trying to get a good knowledge of glazes under my belt - I'm diligently making note of all the varieties of glazings I'm trying out. I have yet to find a combination which I love. I'll continue with lots of complex scribbled notes in my sketchbooks until I find whatever it is I'm looking for.

I jumped on the wheel this week and made three quite well-centred pots. Not bad for not having been on that wheel for a good 5 months. Here are my pinch pots... I made holes in the bottom using my favourite tool, that's so they they can become mini flower pots.

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And finally, this wouldn't be a pottery post without a mention of the teeth. I'm making a few every week, enjoying the three-step process,  with my pottery course once a week, each stage takes a week to complete, and I have many teeth on the go at once:

1) Sculpt tooth shape > leave to dry

2) Smooth tooth with wet sponge and fire > tooth gets fired in kiln

3) glaze the fired tooth > tooth gets re-fired

4) One complete tooth!

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We have a project to complete this term - 'Cornucopia: the Horn of Plenty'. This involves writing Haikus and creating a 'fantastical form for fabulous foods' for the celebratory feast to mark Potstop's 20th anniversary.

We'll be inscribing the haiku on the form, and it will contain one of our favourite foods. I'm making a wide-open jaw, complete with teeth, holding fizzy sherbet-y sweets and a few gobstoppers. It's going to be reminiscent of that bit in Beetlejuice when the bowls come to life.

Beetlejuice bowl

BUT less scary. This reminds me of wonderful Harry Belafonte. Remember the song in that scene - 'Banana Boat Song (Day O)'? It's a cracker. So I'll ending this with his other mega-famous one - Jump in the Line. Bye!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk3sLHZzZRI&w=560&h=315]

Simple way to create text artwork

I just found a brilliant tutorial over at the Wicked & Weird blog (A good'n for a variety of creative inspiration) The blog post was a re-post, originally taken from A Beautiful Mess, and the blog post has detailed steps and lots of images to help you with this DIY project.This is what you'll make:And this is how you'll do it:

1. Find a crap old painting
2. Use sticky letter stickers to spell something out on-top of the painting
3. Spray/Paint it all white
4. Then peel the letters off.

Regine Ramseier - Windstille

'Windstille' An installation by German artist Regine Ramseier.The following is taken from Ramseier's website. Thank you Google Translate! Although it doesn't make all that much sense."I have focused this work on the small room in the art laboratory. Around 2000 withered dandelion flowers alive and easily commute from the ceiling. A symbol of life and birth. A symbol of vanity. A moment to pause. Hold your breath and turn to the transient of a breath. Marvel at the miracle chamber. Hermann Hesse has expressed my feelings into words. In the poem, momentary flashes. The small white room contains a large window, which locks out the green of the park. The dandelion sky slopes from the door to the window and it seems as if the flowers worn out from the room, the light and the day to meet. But still they hang in the room and are permanent. Captured in my memory. They will not return. But the golden meadows, this I know, the dandelions, they will return next spring."

Paper Mâché birds and heads

I have been making some bird and people heads.Made from paper-mâché - PVA glue & water with newspaper dipped into it. I make a sturdy cardboard base by wrapping some around a jar, and then cover with a couple of layers of paper-mâché to make it go really dry when hard.Man's not finished

Flamingo's finished: 

Confused man sculpture

My fingers made this silly little man out of clay, i don't know where he came from, but he obviously had to get out! I like his teeth the best.

And this is a bit of fluff i made from bits of fluff.

It reminds me of everlasting gob stoppers and my friend Jack Warren Meeks.

Paul Granjon - Zprod

Paul Granjon is a wonderful, machine making man."I am interested in the co-evolution of humans and machines.I build robots and other machines for shows in performances, galleries, festivals and television."And this - the antigravitational vehicle for cats video

He makes songs using his handmade 40cm long 'Zitare', here they are. Have a listen to them!  I especially like 'La chanson du cherry pie song'

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Fluffy tamagotchi'

Property of Paul Granjon

a little film about him

here

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Furman'

Property of Paul Granjon

"I saw Furman in a dream... I sketched the creature in my diary in the morning: a 6 foot furry thing with no arms and furry legs, delivering karate kicks in the air. A few weeks later, I decided to build the creature."

Imagine if we all made the thing we see in our dreams? Mr Granjon's immediacy is great, if only we all shared it.

Here's his website.