Sometimes I forget to just play with my work. Sarah contacted me from Calgary to confess that a soup dish/plate I’d made more than twenty years ago had finally been broken. Her family enjoy the size and shape and could I make another? She knows my work has evolved since then and that I use different clay now. She merely said that she’s like two and that I could decorate them any way I like.

So I threw four, all slightly different sizes, ranging from 8″ to 9 1/2″ across, and 1 1/2″ to 2″ deep. We love using this size and shape  for ‘one-pot’ suppers, soup, pasta etc.

When it came time to decorate the four, after careful trimming, I simply chose favourite slips as a background colour and then applied a rim decoration in complementary colours. Oddly all four have a design based on eight points. Actually not so odd as I had an opened-out octagonal chocolate box which I used to situate the design in the form. With no particular theme

in mind I just allowed myself to paint brush strokes or banding and finish with a little sgraffito for accents. I’ve taken photos in case I want to repeat any of these designs but happily Sarah has said that she wants all four now anyway! Luckily they stack nicely. Which design do you like best?

I shall be using the same clay and slips for a free workshop I’m putting on for TriCity Potters next week. Today I plan to start cutting out tiles which will shrink to 6″ square and show the members how to apply slips to leather hard ware. Don’t worry, they will be paying me for the materials, firing etc. I’ll post photos of the event and their finished work later.