pasta plates – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis

Birds nesting..

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:37:38 +0000

It may be because Spring is finally here and we’re noticing woodpeckers drumming for a mate, goldfinches cavorting at the feeder and hummingbirds dancing nearby, that I found I’d made a good number of jugbirds for my recent firing, as well as another Egg box.

I see three of these around here but clearly not the Puffin!

I was determined to get a kiln load done by last weekend because I was expecting important visitors during the week. What a great incentive to do a big tidy-up of the studio and damp-mop the whole floor!

A Calgary friend has been very patient waiting for me to complete making a group of large plates and pasta dishes for her family of six, including two sets of now-adult twins! These are the last two pasta dishes with designs Sarah selected.

I often make plates just because I really enjoy throwing, trimming and decorating them. This one is my current favourite.

This firing also included the clear-glazing of pieces I’d made as part of TriCity Potters exploration of Sgraffito. I carved the black slip on the red clay cup during our meeting recently. Now they are ready to share at our next get-together at PoMoArts on Friday April 22nd. We will have an interesting presentation as well, to be announced on TCP facebook page and website.

My first all-yellow jugbird was snapped up right away so I made a couple more – and now one is flying to Langley and the other to Ontario!

The yellow-billed fellow on the right flew to Vancouver yesterday. It was a treat to welcome a pair of collectors who selected earthenware and salty pieces. Happy to meet you C & M.

Jonathon had asked me to make some more Red Cardinal jugbirds for his gallery. When his camera-man/gallery partner Brian Barnum Cooke was here with Michael on Wednesday the cardinals were part of the group of pots Brian selected for me to mail to Ontario. I am so honoured to have had such a knowledgeable collector here to really see my work, old and new, and actually read my related publications. Alan and I enjoyed lunch with the two guys in the Boathouse in Rocky Point Park.

Let’s see if this works. This is a first time downloading a video to my blog. Brian took this to commemorate Jonathon’s Gallery’s 22nd birthday.

Here, to cap off a very busy week, is a photo of the three parcels I’ve packed up and we mailed off to Ontario yesterday. When Jonathon opens them you’ll be able to see what Brian chose for the gallery. Now I shall poke some more perennial plants in my new patch of brick-framed garden and watch for more birds nesting.

Happy Easter! Our family plan to fish out the kit for decorating eggs Ukrainian-style. I must buy some white eggs instead of my preferred brown ones.

For those who are registered to receive my blogs as an email I am sorry if you are notified of a new blog, twice. We haven’t found a way to turn off feedburner, and the new MailPoet system gives a black image. Oh dear.. technology!

January Jugs & more

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 19:55:45 +0000

It took most of January to get my kiln filled. My second successful cataract operation was two weeks ago today and I’m delighted that my two eyes now see the same colours, distant vision is great and in a couple more weeks I’ll get a prescription for near vision. Al and I popped in to Vancouver one day when the pervasive fog had lifted and enjoyed a little gallery hop on East 1st Ave. (Gallery Jones, Gallery Elan and Burrard Fine Arts). I collected Eric Metcalfe’s latest three painted plates so that helped to fill the kiln. I’ll show his work in a later blog. On our way home we enjoyed marvellous late Winter afternoon views from Burnaby Mountain park.

Special requests led my first pottery efforts of 2022. A Calgary friend collects my large colourful pasta-type plates and she had hoped I’d get some more made. Here are four, each using one basic slip colour which I then paint with two other colours that I think might be suitable. It’s often a surprise to see how these colour experiments turn out.

I experimented with turquoise circles on the dark blue dish, the biggest, accented with white porcelain slip. I’m pleasantly surprised with the result and so, apparently are lots of others. Facebook and Instagram followers have cheered me enormously with their enthusiastic ‘likes’ and comments. Thank you all!

On the Peacock slip-painted dish I opted to add brush-strokes of lime green and dots of Sienna pink. Nice!

There was a request for a large version of the grey rocks design. A touch of the porcelain white slip makes the rocks 3D.

The fourth dish is painted with the retro lime green and on that I added a design in a darker green slip and Marigold.

Another long-standing request was for a Harlequin Duck jug. These multi-part fellows take planning but I made wheel-thrown sections and assembled them. The actual painting, while referring to photos of real ducks, doesn’t actually take much time. I’m so lucky that D’arcy’s Redart earthenware is so forgiving, and as long as I cover the parts during the making I can take several days to complete them. In fact the odd day under plastic during the process is good. My collector can choose from two Harlequins.

The third of these became a Mallard Duck jug and he is destined to fly to England one day. I hope he has enough distinguishing features to be recognisable.

Somebody else asked me for a jugbird that was larger than usual so that it could hold at least three cups of gravy. OK! These three are painted in bold colours as requested and are not any specific bird. I wonder what people will think of the yellow one. I like it!

There’s another ‘regular’ rather than bird jug, painted in a relaxed way in greys with red underglaze accents. I do like jugs!

The latest carved box is more of a ball than an egg, but the terra sigillata finish is toasty. Next to it is a yunomi.

Finally, the real reason to get the kiln fired was to fire the snowmen that the 6-year-old grandson twins made on their last visit before school started. These pinch-pot fellows have removeable heads as lids and we chose twigs for me to glue in for arms. They’ll finally get to see them tomorrow when I will be at a TriCity Potters first ‘live’ meeting in Pitt Meadows, near their home. Great anticipation I’m told.. as the whole family recovers from Covid.

With a planned discussion of sgraffito at a TCP meeting I drew some birds on a wee vase. It was painted with my pale green slip and carved when it was leather hard.

Particular Patterns on Plates

Gillian McMillan — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 19:31:23 +0000

Every shelf in my latest bisque and glaze firings held plates, except for the top one. There I placed four requested Red-breasted Sapsucker Jugbirds, the ‘North by North-West (NXNW)’ mugs and two bowls for donation for the September NWCF fundraiser ‘That Pottery Thing’.

To save space here I’ve assembled the photos with the ‘layout’ app so that you can see the top and side view of some pieces or have several plates in one image.

I keep trying to make larger pasta plates for a Calgary family. They ask for colourful and varied and large. These three might fit the bill and I am rather pleased with the blue one. I rarely use the Sienna pink slip but with a touch of red underglaze the flowers look good over the dark blue. It’s just lucky that this rose presented itself just as I was looking for a spot to photograph it.

10 1/4″ x 2 3/4″

An idea I shall use again is this happy result of concentrated parallel line painting. The combination of lime green, peacock and porcelain white slips resulted in a pleasing design. It’s just a small 7″ plate.

Eric Metcalfe was pleased to have another chance to draw and paint on plates to relieve the current Covid loneliness. His three have a D theme which may refer to his questionable grades in school compared to his recent honorary Arts doctorate from his Alma Mater, the University of Victoria. Congratulations Eric! I intend to start making more white earthenware plates for a possible small re-start of Artist ‘Raids’ in the coming months.

It was a treat to join other NorthWest Ceramic Foundation board members for a garden meeting last Tuesday evening. This was the first time I’ve met the group in person since joining the board. I delivered the two bowls (there will be unusual contents in these and more surprise bowls at the September Gala, Auction and Award-presentation event That Pottery Thing), my auction donation of a special soda-fired Jugbird and I gave Carol Mayer a box of elderly pots of non-gallery pieces from my studio shelves for donation to ‘the HOB’. The latter is a Hospice Charity shop in the Dunbar area which is featuring donations from NWCF this week.

These are slab plates on which I used Port Moody artist Sara Graham’s Maple Leaf design as stencil and imprint.

Here are two more plates … I need to donate some for That Pottery Thing.

The RB Sapsucker Jugbirds were all collected last week, three for the Sunshine Coast and the last went to a NXNW listener.