It was a really rainy morning last Wednesday. Some of the Raiders complained of hydroplaning on the Barnet Highway, there was so much rain. All good for the garden.

Mina Totino, Philippe Raphanel, Michelle Normoyle, Tamara Mills, Kate Metten and new Raider Mitch Kenworthy were my visitors for the day. Eric was missed. Seventeen plates were painted! It’s lovely to watch the concentration that sets in quite quickly. Each artist has an idea ahead of time usually, and sometimes that gets modified by the shape of a particular plate. Newbie Mitch admitted to feeling rather strange dealing with a curved oval platter. He missed the corners of a canvas.

The crew were able to leave their work for lunch. Mina created a colourful salad and served it on one of her flamboyant big round platters, Michelle and Mitch brought home-made salads, one with orzo and the other with cous-cous. Kate had made a spinach and feta quiche the night before and Philippe had baked an exotic crustless flan with apricots. We were obliged to have dessert after our lunch because Tamara had baked a blueberry loaf with lemon drizzle for tea-time!

I took a photo of their work after they’d all driven home to Vancouver, and now, two days later the plates have been bisque fired for a second time. Philippe likes to apply underglazes, then wax resist and then layer another coat of a semi-covering white underglaze. It gives a surprising and impressive effect but it means that I need to burn off that wax before I can apply glaze. So I decided to re-bisque all the work, including one sent out with the group, by Elizabeth Mackintosh. Sealing the underglaze before glazing is a good thing. If they’re cool enough to work on tomorrow I’ll start glazing.

What did I do while they worked? I wasn’t ready to fish out my red earthenware clay after the excitement of the salt firing so I took the quiet time to make notes of what had happened with the flashing slips, liner glazes and salt on my new pieces.