It was good to settle back into the routine of ‘Raids’ again yesterday. Eric, Renée and Monique rolled up shortly after 10am, loaded with lunch and their supplies for working. After such a long gap between these painting visits I had accumulated plenty of platters and plates for them.

Renée had an ambitious plan for the day, hoping to roll out more slabs and paint a couple of plates. But she had brought out some bone-dry sculptures she’d made so spent much of the day applying underglazes to those. They are a very interesting direction for her to have taken. She thought at first that she’d leave them white but by the time we’d offered our suggestions that colours would be really effective all were painted! Now she will have to make a decision about whether to glaze or not after the bisque firing. 

She painted two new simple round plates I’d made for her with white only and has taken them home to finish. They will be the first of a set of dinner plates I believe. And I think she’ll be out this way again soon to make the glaze-or-not decision and to use my slab roller to make more slabs for further constructions. 

Eric was engrossed in painting one of his favourite rimmed small plates, and with so much conversation only finished the one, taking another home, along with some jars of underglaze. Today he phoned to tell me that it’s already painted. 

Monique wasn’t going to be able to join us but at the last minute did come. But she’d obviously thought about her painting plans and jumped right in to applying adhesive spots for resist and then creating a swirling outer-space image. There is an unexpected chartreuse green underneath. She also made one of her complex patterned images, and her third is bisected into red and black with a bright explosion in the middle. Can’t wait to see how they look later. 

As usual we had a fine potluck lunch and pie with our tea. I worked on inserting spouts/beaks into jugbird bodies I threw some days ago.

Thanks for poddling out to Port Moody once again, Raiders. I always find our get-togethers and conversation stimulating, friendly and often funny! Next Saturday I am expecting a different group, four so far, so I plan to prepare some more plates for them. Looking forward to that and getting my kiln filled so we can all see results!