Orange is all the rage

Hmm, it seems orange and geometry seems to be my latest fad. 

These are both clay tiles with some white and mixed glazes.  The bottom one is a Berber triangle I had previously drawn, the top one an octogram with patterns in the middle inspired by wheels.

Kaleidometric drawing WIP based on various ways of looking at a pinecone. I was trying to get the fibonacci pattern in it, but couldn't manage to calculate it mathematically, so I had to shuffle stuff about until it looked vaguely right. It will grow more bit by bit, and be in colour, eventually. I have mostly finished drawing the inked bit now.

Froggybob, toadybob, he's a bit confused to be honest.

I made a ceramic frogtoad. My first ceramic critter!

I always deeply disliked the frog princes’ bride. The story actually rather upset me as a child, to tell the truth.  How could she throw the poor thing across the room, I ask you *cries*

(buff clay, yellow.white glaze for belly, brown and mixed pale green for back, w/ copper oxide powder)
And black glaze for the eyes. I really like simple black glaze on eyes, and got the idea from looking at stuff by other clay tinkerers. It means the light always hits in a natural way, the 'gleam' always means it doesn't look too 'dead'. 

I'm thinking of making him a crown and a golden ball and giving him a photosession in the local pond for extra silliness value.

WIPs

Snippets of two things I am working on at the moment...

The second one will probably be the first finished, as I have to wait for some flowers to come out to do the first one. Both pencil, last one has some ink and gouache too.

Ceramics!

I just started a ceramics class for a bit of variety lately. It's horribly addictive, and I've been tinkering around with many silly ideas. Evidently I'm constitutionally incapable of making anything sensible, but they all have some sort of tenuously practical use so far. I'm pretty much just bumbling along and teaching myself as I go.

 

Buff(?)  clay with white, red, yellow and brown glazes. The little fireplace in the centre is designed to hold a tealight and the roof comes off.  

Click the cut for more! Lots more, I'm afraid.... 

Ello there! Here are a few pictures of my autumn trip to Berlin. You will notice that I only seem to like photographing quite boring things, mainly trees and statues and so on. I don't really like taking pictures the first time I visit places, as it takes away the spontenaity for me, so there are only a few here. Next time I will take much more. Click the cut for more.

Pom Poko screenshots part 2: Ghost parade

 Ok, if you haven't yet seen the film you might like to save this (the dramatic climax) til later, It's not exactly a spoiler, but it's such a brilliantly hallucinatory experience to watch that I wouldn't want to take that away from you. ;)
That said, here goes! Again, some of these are a bugger to catch because it moves so fast.

  From earlier in the film, but I couldn't resist adding it.

Pom Poko screenshots part 1: Landscapes

 

 Okay, so if you haven't yet seen Pom Poko then you must. It's a film by the Japanese Studio Ghibli about raccoons. It has the most fantastic mix of good things; humour, wonderful music, bawdy humour, expressive characters and gorgeous, realistic depictions of nature.

The backgrounds are so wonderfully painted that I just had to make a blog post with some screenshots of the film. Some of these were only visible for a few seconds, but the detail is incredible and the atmosphere is immersive.

Bear in mind these shots are not in viewing order. The film runs in cycles of several seasons, so I tried to put complementary things together.... 

Click for more. This is a must-see!