Note to my Blog Readers

There won't be any more posts until September .........
the reason is below!!

Off to Nashville!

My Blog Maker has just taken this picture! I am packing my suitcase to fly tomorrow to America for four weeks.
I shall be staying in Arlington in Texas with my china painting friend, and while there will be attending a grape seminar by Cindy Warren. I love painting grapes, so am really looking forward to this three day class.
The third week of August my friend and I are flying to Nashville to attend the I.P.A.T. exhibition for four days. I shall be attending two classes while there - one on winter tulips and plums, and one on roses. There will be lots of stimulation viewing the exhibition of pieces painted by people all around the world - and the many vendors selling supplies for our art.
My suitcase looks a good size in the picture, but by the time all my painting gear goes in there is not a lot of room for clothes.
Oh, well ..... pack the important things I say!!

Apples!

This plate with the three apples on it has just been painted, and hung in our hallway with the matching "Pears" and "Grapes" which are in my February blog.
The trio make a colourful group, and shall give us much pleasure.

Ten Minute Fun!

I belong to a forum called Chatty Teachers, and someone challenged us to paint a rose "outside our box or comfort zone". I normally take hours to paint roses, but this was to be a quick one fire plate with no messing around!
I used fat oil to mix my paint powder, and then thinned it with lavender oil so it glided on the plate like silk. Then I used some gold underlay and swirled on three more roses and flicked on some stems and leaves. After firing I covered the underlay with gold, and painted a few gold lines on my leaves.
And Bingo! The plate was finished.
(Not my usually style - but a bit of fun!)

Apples!

Disappointingly, when I opened the kiln on this plate's 4th and last fire I found a crack had developed three quarters of the way through the middle of it. The design is inspired from a print out of a book printed by Jayne Marcks.
I'm glad the plate hadn't actually broken into two pieces, and I'm glad that the crack didn't appear on earlier firings. The apples were fun to paint, and I shall probably paint the design on something else one day soon.

Tulip Bowl

A different style from what I normally paint!

The wide rim of the bowl has 4 layers of lustre on it; two coats of bronze and two coats of blue. The end result shows pinks, blues, greens and bronze colours - very eye catching! You never can be 100% sure how lustres turn out - fortunately for me this was a success.

The background of the bowl behind the tulips is mother of pearl, which gives a swirl of interesting shades of pearl and pinks. And the two bands of black around the edge of the bowl and the edge of the rim set the whole design.

Sarah-Jane's box

Look down a few posts and you will see the
picture of our Sarah-Jane Joy Fowler.

Here is her birth box!
Lots of enamel to embellish, with a little mother of pearl in the heart shape and also every second stripe on the bottom of the box.
Her birth details are printed on the bottom of the box. What will she think when SHE is a Great Grand Mother and shows it to her off-spring?

Sarah-Jane's box

This pic shows the bottom of the box.