Next stall this Thursday - new stock

I expect to be taking part in a stall in the foyer of our local Sutherland hospital on Thursday 27 October ...

The Kingsway & Kareena Road, Caringbah NSW 2229

We shall be there from 9am to 2.30pm...

I will have some new stock including these care free cactus plants..

Hope you can call by and say hello

Care Free Cactus Kit includes Wheel thrown planter, decorative stones and one "cactus" plant

The perfect gift for your low light office or bathroom.

it stayed blue and a neat trick

Those that follow my blog will know I fired a pot recently expecting a black decoration.  It turned blue instead!  Still nice and usable just not what I was expecting.

It was suggested that it could return to black in the firing but as you can see that wasn't the case:

It was a good firing and I'm pleased with all the results...

This morning I went outside and found a puzzle...

this palm tree flower stem was slap bang in the middle of this pot!  The yard is enclosed and the pot is not near the fence so it has fallen directly off the tree into the pot without knocking the pot over!
Such a funny thing ... it is rather chewed so may have been dropped by a cockatoo but still a great shot!
I made these two pots some time ago.. they are wheel thrown, decorated with terrasiggalata and then pit fired.

a slight surprise

 When my bisque firing cooled and I opened it up I had a surprise

This tissue print design appeared black when first applied but once fired you can see it is blue...
Not what I was aiming for but I will go ahead and glaze it...

There are a couple of these with matching side plates..

We have a grass tree in our front garden and the spring rains have encouraged a flower which the honey bees are loving...

Watch this space for glaze firing results soon (all being well)

Firing underway then the wait

Those pots were trimmed and a few decorated and then the tricky task of fitting as many as possible into the kiln...

I've also made some Christmas decorations to fill the gaps...

Still I had 3 pieces I couldn't fit in this time...

On it went - a long slow firing to let those handles mature gradually...

And a pretty flower to look at while I wait for the kiln to cool and see if it was successful. Fingers crossed....

#SaturdayShelfie - Friday clean up

Over on a Facebook Group I administer there is what we call #SaturdayShelfie to encourage members to share what is happening in their studios.

After being very busy with the coordination of a National Pottery Competition for the last few weeks I finally had time to tidy my studio...
it was rather a mess

Once cleaned I was able to start on some throwing and hope to get back there again today...

The clay was just the right consistency for throwing... so I was rather pleased with these results.  Trimming this afternoon I hope.

Here is a link to the Competition page: http://porthackingpotters.blogspot.com.au/p/2016-national-competition.html

and the Facebook Group: Facebook - Anna's Aussie Ceramics