Yesterday was the first day of winter (cue my daughter jumping up and down with delight) but I'm already thinking about springtime, flowers, and warmer weather. I've never been a fan of the cold or the snow, but growing up in New England got me used to it anyways. Just the same, its never to early to start thinking about the warmer months ahead, right? I love when everything starts turning green again and little buds pop up here and there, and before you know it, there are colorful flowers everywhere. For now, these flowers live in my studio. I started with a decorating a large pitcher (see my previous blog entries about how I built it) and expanded onto a planter and dishes, both large and small. While the style of the flowers are mostly the same, I've taken to adding variations and colors along the way, as well as a few little mushrooms there and there. Only a few of the earlier pieces have been bisque fired so far, but I'm hoping to get the rest ready by next week (although with school holidays, that's a big hope).

So here is the large pitcher, again.. I love how this started a whole series of flowers on pottery.

And this one was going to be another large vessel, but the taller it got, the less I liked it, so I cut it down and make a planter with it. I've since added little feet to it as well, which makes it look much lighter.

And now on to the dishes!

This was the first large dish I made with the flowers. It was made on a hump mold which is quite heavy, but its great for making large dishes. I even gave the bottom some love since it has such a large foot. I have lots of ideas for dishes like this, but it takes about half a day to get the clay set up on the mold, and I can't remove it until its at least leather-hard (and softer and it'll flop and warp.. not good).

I'm making small dishes, too. Most of these are shaped with various GR Pottery forms (they're called 'cuties'.. appropriate name, right?) and then painted and sgraffito'd like the larger ones. Apart from the last one, I made these in succession rather than one at a time which proves to be much more efficient.

And one more large dish for now! I'm keeping a page in my Midori sketchbook with circles traced out and every time I think of a new idea for flower dishes, I draw it out. I have a couple more I still want to try and will hopefully get around to starting them next year once my daughter is back in school.

So what do you think? Feel free to check out my posts and reels on my Instagram to see some process videos, leave a comment, or just say hi! I'd love to hear from you! And as always, thank you for reading my blog. Stay warm and safe!