All, Studio

2017_29

I didn’t get as far as firing this past week. It’s just as well considering the heat and humidity we’ve been experiencing. Mornings were relatively cool. That was my time to work. Most days the studio was too stifling to […]
All, Studio

2017_28

It was a week of glazing bisque and firing kilns. The culmination of all the weeks spent making models, moulds, and slip casting. The moment of truth when it all comes together. The first glaze firing barely made it to […]
All, Studio

2017_27

With a nudge from a friend, I decided to forget my plans and start glazing. All it took to make that happen was relocating some seldom used dry materials. That made enough space to absorb about a third of the […]
All, Collector

Popov Porcelain Bear Behaving Badly

I believe this playful figure group was made by a Russian Private Factory in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. I am looking for supporting evidence. It is unmarked. There is a miniature of this subject illustrated in V. […]
All, Studio

2017_26

It’s a week’s work to cast one copy from each of these moulds and have it ready to bisque fire. The time adds up quickly when you have this much greenware to clean. I do a final once over with […]
All, Studio

2017_25

It was a challenge to slip cast with so much of the table space given over to storage. Between the first instalment of the modules and those I just made, there are around eighty moulds involved in this set. Not […]
All, Collector

Staffordshire Pearlware Chimney Sweep

This pearlware figure of a Chimney Sweep was made in Staffordshire in the early nineteenth century after an earlier figure by Paul-Louis Cyfflé. Cyfflé was one of the great modellers of the eighteenth century. He worked in the Lorraine region […]
All, Studio

2017_24

It feels really good to have finished this batch of moulds. Glad to have stayed the course. I used fifteen bags of USG #1 to make a total of forty six moulds over this past three weeks. With these added […]
All, Studio

2017_23

When I made the trip for supplies, I returned with plaster. The way I have come to see the modular set is that all the components need to be ready at the same time. That’s the reason I have been […]
All, Collector

Prattware Pottery Chickens

These Prattware Pottery Chickens were made in Staffordshire in the early years of the nineteenth century. They have been underglaze painted with colours derived from the oxides of iron (orange), manganese (brown), cobalt (blue), chrome (green) and antimony (yellow). Sealed […]