Renée tells me that she took a pottery class many years ago. Certainly she is comfortable working on a curved surface and right away understood how to achieve opaque consistent surfaces. She comes to work for the day prepared with paper collages, carefully cuts out a paper template outlining the plate’s shape and places it over her collage. She then draws the composition onto the plate and paints it in her meticulous way.

I am so interested to see how various artists tackle their process. Eric and Renée plan out the whole surface with pencil lines before painting. Some use stencils and rulers and then others start with painting the underglazes right away. Some like the opacity which is achieved by layering the colour and others prefer to leave brushstrokes or the effect of water-colour. I make a point of never discussing what is being painted, I see my role as the provider of the material and the space to paint.

Renée brought back a couple of pieces from last year. They had developed some crazing, as earthenware can do. I think that pieces fired on the bottom shelf of my kiln may not get quite as hot as the rest and I have found that a refiring takes care of it. One photo here, showing five pieces, includes those two refires and Renée, don’t they look nice?