All my wise men are complete! I was documenting their progress over on My Instagram and I'm happy to say that they all survived the kiln.Many thanks to Jen at The Village Pottery, who let me work in her lovely studio here in Briz.Images of the making process:And here's a few from my new clan of wise men:

Pottery & Ceramics

Seed Pod Vase

Lucy Barfoot · June 6, 2016

Trying out a new technique with coil-building.

Pottery & Ceramics, Process, Sketchbook

Glaze Tests

Lucy Barfoot · March 25, 2016

Glaze tests complete. Been working on these for a while, I now have the most complex diagram in my sketchbook to show the slips, paint-on glazes and over glazes.

Pottery & Ceramics

Mottled Blue

Lucy Barfoot · February 10, 2016

He's nice isn't he! A truly one-of-a-kind piece of mine. My glazings do not normally look like this Oceanic blue vase with painterly glazing. I used blue stain, blue paint-on-glaze (applied with a hair-dye application squeezy tool), and blue mottled glaze over the top. I then cleaned off the top, leaving the rim with just a dip of transparent glaze.This piece is for sale over at Barfoot + Duggan, and mid-feb I'll be listing all new vases for sale.

Pottery & Ceramics, Process

Tall Skinny Vases, round 2

Lucy Barfoot · January 13, 2016

Tall and Skinny pots a gogo. Making 5 of these, a set, all as close to being the same as I can manage - something I haven't done before. Repetitive making satisfies me, and getting these as thin as possible has been my aim. Working with the additional loops, and lots of ideas developing for what's next. Planning on glazing these with painted on rutile stain, simple white and transparent glaze and possibly splashing out on some antique gold glaze to drizzle. I'll be updating stage-by-stage so watch this space.

Pottery & Ceramics

Skinny Vase in situ

Lucy Barfoot · January 10, 2016

Sold! To the beautiful Leonie! Doesn't the vase look lovely against her Alce Harfield painting?

Pottery & Ceramics

Hands Can

Lucy Barfoot · November 27, 2015

Some of the first things I made at pottery class were hands. There's a lot of palm-based pottery and back when I started I was gazing at Pinterest for Pottery inspiration. Looking back, it was a great place to start - hands moulding to the shape of your own hands, a simple shape which we all know so well.Loved dipping the fingers in antique gold, and loved giving away and/or dropping and smashing all of the hands depicted here. It'll soon be time for more hands, I recon.

Pottery & Ceramics, Process, Sketchbook

Keeping a pottery notebook and testing colour & texture

Lucy Barfoot · November 11, 2015

Something I couldn't not do without at the pottery studio is my sketchbook - a record of glazes, processes, what works and what doesn't. I'm a big fan of keeping note and have got into the habit of making keys for colour and texture.This is a colour wheel I made. I noted which colour is which, so if i find a shade/overlap of slip and glaze I love, I know what it is. Without this, I find it hard to choose which slips and glazes to use - they are stored in tupperware boxes, and the colour is written on the box but the wet slips only show their colour once fired - it's like a lottery unless you have a key.Texture tests! I made this because I want to be adding more texture to things, and i want to be nimble about it, rather than having to wait to experiment with a texture - I did lots of texture experiments all at once, and laid out each texture tool next to the mark it made. I'll now print this pic out and wack it into my sketchbook.

Pottery & Ceramics

Tall 'n' Skinny

Lucy Barfoot · November 9, 2015

Cracking on with making lots of these tall and skinny vases, ready exhibiting and selling at the Totterdown Arts Trail 2015, and some Christmas markets too.

Pottery & Ceramics

Jug with Loops

Lucy Barfoot · October 30, 2015

Made this coiled pot last term, my first time coiling in ages. First time attaching these loops/bridges/handles too. Glazing - more painted brushstrokes, and a colour palette of lilacy-greys.

Pottery & Ceramics

Tiny Swan

Lucy Barfoot · August 13, 2015

I made a mini-swan

Pottery & Ceramics

Ceramic finds on Pinterest

Lucy Barfoot · August 7, 2015

I've been collecting images of the ceramics I love over on Pinterest, come and follow me.

Pottery & Ceramics

Getting all skinny with the vases

Lucy Barfoot · July 7, 2015

New batch of vases coming right up. Trying the same thing over and over to perfect the technique. These vases are getting thinner and thinner and I like it.

Pottery & Ceramics

Fast pot making

Lucy Barfoot · March 23, 2015

I notice that everythig I make at my pottery class is fast fast fast. I have few things on the go, I have a to-do list, I rush things and don't look at the finer details, I want to get things complete. This is something I've been trying to change this term, but turns out, it ain't working! Not planning m pottery sessions has left me twiddling my thumbs and time-wasting (something I find super-irritating) because I have no plan.I think for me, the secret is within finding a way to have a plan, but to not rush within it. Don't over-commit by starting lots of new things at once, but start the term with a few items in mind and devote the sessions to them.These two were made very quickly, by wrapping around a tube. I forget the name for this. The decoration on both did take a long time, using a technique called inlay. Lots of scraping away and digging out. If you don't smooth it all down after, you get this scraped effect - see it below?With both pots, I used transparent glaze, which looks crap! And dipped the bottoms in Tin White glaze, which looks equally crap! I like the patterns though. I took some of my drawings and translated it onto pottery, which was exciting. I need to find a way of drawing directly on rather than using the inlay technique though.See, I'm all about the timesaving. The focus and time needs to be on building the foundations I think. That's where the skill is.These are both functional, wahey! One is a pen pot and the other, in the bathroom used for tweezers and the like.

Pottery & Ceramics

Functional Plant Pot AKA Vase

Lucy Barfoot · March 11, 2015

I chucked some flowers in the honeycomb / seedpod pot I made, and voila - a vase!

3D, Pottery & Ceramics, Process

Pinch Pots

Lucy Barfoot · October 10, 2014

This blog might well be turning into my pottery log.... A new term of my pottery class has started and I had my first go at the humble pinch pot. A very quick and crude method of vestibule-making. A couple in this batch have fingermarks, which I think looked pretty good, I would like to try the same with a simple white and understated glaze.

I'm trying to get a good knowledge of glazes under my belt - I'm diligently making note of all the varieties of glazings I'm trying out. I have yet to find a combination which I love. I'll continue with lots of complex scribbled notes in my sketchbooks until I find whatever it is I'm looking for.

I jumped on the wheel this week and made three quite well-centred pots. Not bad for not having been on that wheel for a good 5 months. Here are my pinch pots... I made holes in the bottom using my favourite tool, that's so they they can become mini flower pots.

And finally, this wouldn't be a pottery post without a mention of the teeth. I'm making a few every week, enjoying the three-step process, with my pottery course once a week, each stage takes a week to complete, and I have many teeth on the go at once:

1) Sculpt tooth shape > leave to dry

2) Smooth tooth with wet sponge and fire > tooth gets fired in kiln

3) glaze the fired tooth > tooth gets re-fired

4) One complete tooth!

We have a project to complete this term - 'Cornucopia: the Horn of Plenty'. This involves writing Haikus and creating a 'fantastical form for fabulous foods' for the celebratory feast to mark Potstop's 20th anniversary.

We'll be inscribing the haiku on the form, and it will contain one of our favourite foods. I'm making a wide-open jaw, complete with teeth, holding fizzy sherbet-y sweets and a few gobstoppers. It's going to be reminiscent of that bit in Beetlejuice when the bowls come to life.

BUT less scary. This reminds me of wonderful Harry Belafonte. Remember the song in that scene - 'Banana Boat Song (Day O)'? It's a cracker. So I'll ending this with his other mega-famous one - Jump in the Line. Bye!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk3sLHZzZRI&w=560&h=315]