Morning Walk

I'm very lucky to live near some remnants of bushland which I find soothes the soul..Here are some snaps I took on a recent morning walk.....

There are many varieties of this Callistomen or Bottle Brush - it is a small tree or shrub often used for street planting and the parrots love them...

this is the Flannel Flower and as you might guess the petals feel like a flannel or very soft felt. Only comes in white.

These are Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. Quite a large bird and very clever. They will band together to lift the lid on garbage bins and then toss out the contents for the others to pick through leaving a big mess in the street. They can be taught to talk and live long lives in captivity.

In the city

Today I finally got to one of Steve Harrison's exhibition openings - this current show at a different gallery to his usual one, Watters Gallery, was at the new Breathing Colours Gallery at Balmain.  It is a joint show with artist (painter) Roxanne Lillis.  I really like her paintings - very modern but with a lovely use of colour and texture.  The concept was for Roxanne to produce paintings of Steve's bowls and then both works to be displayed together.  It has worked really well.

the colour has been sapped from these bowls by my camera flash but it shows the paintings in the background

This one shows the colours of the pots better, apologies to the patrons for taking their backs

After browsing and catching up with friends my husband and I strolled down the street and found a nice coffee shop to have a coffee and cake before driving back across the city and home.

Balmain is an interesting inner city suburb with lots of old terrace houses.  To get there and back we crossed the second bridge of the Sydney skyline, the Anzac Bridge. Here is a snap taken through the windscreen..

Steve Harrison links up with a painter

Steve Harrison was one of my teachers at college, his latest exhibition looks interesting as he has linked up with painter, Roxanne Lillis. The show at the new Breathing Colours Gallery in Balmain, goes up on the 25th October but the official opening is Saturday afternoon, 29th October at 4pm and it continues to 5th November 2011.

 Most of Steve's work comprises of bowls made from local materials which Steve finds and prepares himself so it will be interesting to see his sword like forms. I rather like the look of these paintings too.

Master class included

Students who took part in the Master Class earlier this year at Gymea TAFE have been invited to be part of the end of year exhibition at The Muse Gallery, Ultimo Campus.  Exhibition opens Monday 31st October 2011 and continues to 3 November 2011.
I'll have a couple of pieces to submit but it was a short course and my experimental wall pieces were not successful enough to exhibit. I also sold a piece so will have to go digging to find a good piece.
This one will go in though:

Textured Porcelain slab build jug. Fired in oxidation to 1280deg C.

Glazed

Here is a glimpse at the results of my pig sculpture now it has been fired. The glaze used is called 30/30/30 and it is a Matt Cone 10 Stoneware glaze.

Wearing a mask and gloves mix 30% Whiting; 30% China Clay and 30% Potash Feldspar. The colour is the addition of 2% iron oxide.

Where it is thick it has a greenish tone when fired to 1280 degrees Celcius in a reduction firing.