Wet, Cold And Frustrated...

...but still working.

Since my last post it has rained. It has rained a lot. It came down so hard one day that the gutters couldn't cope and it poured from the roof like a waterfall. So I haven't been able to do the barrel firing yet. However, today the sun has appeared again and it is supposed to be around for a few days, so (all being well) I hope to do the firing tomorrow.

I have been busy though carving a couple of ball vases (moon jars? I still can't make up my mind).

This is the first one, into which I carved two layers of leafs. I think this works well and I have thrown another couple of small balls to try an idea, evolving from this, next week.

I've popped this photo in next to mislead you. This is the back view. The next two pics are from other directions:

I like this, which is just about finished now. I just need to refine a couple of areas tomorrow, but I thought I would share it with you. It's difficult to get the lighting right to portray the detail although I'm sure you won't mind too much.

It's supposed to be a koi carp swimming under lily pads. It seems quite successful, I'll see if I still like it next week!

Apart from that I've thrown another couple of larger 5kg (11lbs 'ish) pots today for sculpting next week along with the smaller pots I mentioned.

Keep your fingers crossed for my first attempt at barrel firing.

Thanks for visiting.

From today I'm going to add my replies to previous comments below these posts as I always find it awkward going back to blogs and searching through the comments to see if I've had a reply. So from now on if you leave a comment check the following post and I'll try to answer any questions.


First I would like to thank you for the nice comments about my last post.
In answer to Cindy: I plan to barrel fire the low relief pots, which is why I've started concentrating on them, but not the pots with models applied to them (like the frog pot). I will almost certainly glaze fire these as I'm worried that the models could easily be damaged in the barrel firing, as pots move as the wood burns away and the fire collapses. I could barrel fire them separately; I'll see how long it takes for the first barrel firing and decide then.