I bisque and glaze-fired these plates shortly after the last Raid but I seem to have had a number of special events that I wanted to record since then. There was Circle Craft Christmas Market, the soda firing, its opening and then my work. But the Raiders are anxious to see the results of their painting day so finally, here they are.
First up is Raiders founder and long-time organizer, Eric Metcalfe. He had a productive day on that last October Raid, first painting this boldly coloured design with pink, yellow and grey and then drawing and painting another to form a pair with last month’s plate. He likes these rimmed lunch-size plates, using the rim, or not, as part of the design. Get well soon, Eric.
David MacWilliam, a retired ECU painting instructor, hasn’t been on a ‘Raid’ for some years. He came with a clear plan for his day, requesting one of the large round 12 1/2″ platters to create a ‘Herringbone’ design. The toasty orange and black shapes are spectacular!
His other smaller plate is pink with an underglaze pencil-drawn shape.
Renée also painstakingly painted another of the huge round platters but I’ll show it finished after she’s done a little more work on it. Here, on the left, is her second plate, which she describes as a coupe.
The fourth Raider that day was Monique Fouquet. Here we have a turquoise coupe with a Monique shape, and the larger platter depicts mysterious ovals in the mist.
Me, I painted a D’Arcy redart clay coupe with some of my coloured slips. It’s always interesting to see how the shapes appear to be layered, depending on their colours.
Finally, I’ll include this zany platter. Following on from our TriCity Potters’ sgraffito session, I decided to show members how I make these slab plates with a wheel-thrown oval form. Then I encouraged that evening’s attendees to add an icon or little drawing to another leather-hard platter. I had painted the D’Arcy clay form with Kenzan porcelain slip. We can use it for our evening’s goodies. Can you guess who some of the artists are?
Now I need to get back to making some more stoneware pieces as I’ve chosen to join a BC Potters Guild Cone 10 Reduction firing in December. Plus our grandsons were here yesterday making whistles and some pinch pots after they’d seen that TriCity Potters were learning how to make whistles and ocarinas this week. The next bisque firing should be an interesting combination of work.
