Before and after lunch and Birthday cake tea-time Eric and Pierre managed to get lots of work done.

Eric settled down right away to draw on and paint one of his easily recognizable rimmed plates. On this one he left the white clay to contrast with bold black curvy and angular lines, with red and yellow shapes behind. Then he decided that there was time to complete another little dish, chose a triangular one and applied unusual-for-him pink, red, black and grey. I think he’ll be pleased with how these two pieces turned out.

Pierre spent most of his day working on a big round leather-hard plate, scoring it and applying various coloured slips. He then stuck down torn and dampened pieces of newsprint. Over the whole plate he painted black slip and finished the project by carefully lifting off the papers. The piece is now dry and waiting for me and/or a further Raid to fill my kiln for its bisque firing. I’ll post a pic of the finished piece along with the next Raiders’ bounty.

After that he did a much quicker job on an oval lunch plate, sticking damp papers to a plain white surface, painting over all with black underglaze and again, lifting off the papers. The result is simple and effective. His third piece of the day was wetted and then dotted with various colours of underglaze. It is reminiscent of some of his paintings on canvas.

Marlene chose the biggest round plate available and chose to make it into a swimming pool, with a mysterious diving board and a floating life-saving ring and no people. I wonder about the story behind that.

To relax she chose two tiny oval dishes and applied a rich coral colour and topped it with black designs, one of which was then sgraffito’d to reveal the coral. They make a pleasing pair.