Photos from the porcelain painting workshop

Porcelain workshop at Jam Factory, 4th September 2008

I have been attending a 10 week porcelain workshop on Saturdays and have now attended 4.They have been very informative with workshop days being slipcasting, jigger/jolleying, hand carving and painting. The one I enjoyed most has been the last one with Stephen Bowers (head of Jam Factory), taking us for painting on porcelain. His work is exquisite as you can see by the photos of his unfired platters. His talk was very informative and also included history of painting on pottery. We ended the class working on a pot to paint underglaze cobalt colour for our own work, which will be fired and glazed in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile I am coming to grips with painting with casein paint on one of my sculptures.

Media article on Mary MacKillop sculpture, Adelaide Advertiser, 29th September, 2008

Any Sculpting Bloggers

I wondered if there were any bloggers out there that are interested in sculpting and have blogsites. There are plenty of potters out there but I haven't been in touch with fellow sculptors.
If you know of anyone please let them get in touch with me.It would be great to hear from anyone.
Meanwhile I am rubbing down my dancer ready to apply colour to her.I emailed Judy Fox and she was gracious enough to email me back and I am very greatful to have a reply from her.
I would like to be able to get a result somewhat like her child figures and am waiting impatiently to receive the colours I have ordered.
Meanwhile I am making a couple of small figures to try out her techniques,so I'll keep readers posted on the results.

The big squeeze

Things were pretty tight fitting this sculpture of 26" into a kiln 23.5" deep but it fired okay. Opened the kiln this morning ad was relieved to see it had survived the firing. This is one of the pieces I hope to colour.

The big squeeze

Breaking work

Well it's been quite a week. I met with the Architect who has designed the plinth for Mary MacKillop Statue and he had heard a wisper that problems were found in the soil where the site for the sculpture is to be sited and that will put the dedication back awhile, to at least January/Febuary next year, which makes me feel rather depressed as I hoped it would be ready soon. I have been working on this project for over a year now but it will be next year now before it will be unveiled.
I have been drying out the small clay sculptures that I have made and yesterday i added colour to the piece I named "Best Friends". I wanted to add some detail to the colour before I put it in the kiln and accidentally rocked the stand it was on and it went flying to the floor and broke into 10 pieces. I couldn't believe my bad luck. I ended up just putting the pieces in the kiln along with the other sculpture to bisque them,I felt so angry with myself for breaking a potentially sweet little piece and I did'nt even photograph it.
I also returned the "Josephite habit" I borrowed from the convent over 6 months ago,and spoke to one of the sisters there, and she asked how the sculpture was progressing.
Sala is finally over so I can get on with some more work. The Olympic Games gave me more ideas for work, as I like to model children at sport and play, and the young chinese gymnasts had some wonderful poses.
Time is getting away from me before I have to have work ready for the exhibition at Artistic License in October so I had better stop typing and do some work for it instead.