As I write, 2016 is coming to its close. It’s the time of year when you start to take stock, perhaps of fitness or weight, or finances, but in my case I am considering my pottery and my creativity (mainly because fitness, weight and finances are all totally beyond hope!).

I’d like a challenge for 2017 and I want to see progress in my work. I want to try things out and have it be OK if they are total and utter failures (for whatever reason). So, I have decided to aim to make a piece of ceramic work per day for this challenge, something that I wouldn’t usually have made. Since I’ll be photographing things to post here, it’s a good way of tracking progress. The pieces can be a mug, bowl, platter or plate, or something smaller like a tile, whisky cup or egg cup, but I want it to try out something new, in the making, decorating or glazing.  I’ll be making other work too, of course, and naturally I can’t finish a piece of work in a day, it needs to dry and be fired at least twice.

I recently tried out landscape painting in slip and sgraffito, and as it hasn’t been fired yet, I don’t know how it will turn out. However, I enjoyed painting (on a large black clay tile) so much that I intend at least some of my experiments to involve developing a more painterly technique in slip.

 

I have also tried out some lustres recently, and it was basically love at first sight, I opened the kiln and made (probably irritating) “squeeee!” noises at all the shininess. So, there are definitely more experiments with lustre on the horizon. I particularly liked the effect that mother of pearl lustre made on the wings of my dragonfly.

I can hardly wait for the New Year so that I can get started on my Pot-a-day challenge, but in the meantime, I hope that Christmas and New Year are peaceful and full of light and joy for everyone.