For those who read my February 4th blog, I can now show you how the plates painted that day turned out.

Philippe Raphanel’s two exuberant pieces are rather different from his previous ones. He applied bold colours in a careful pattern and then asked for wax resist as he’d done before. But this time he took a less random approach, with circles of dashes and then little dots. The grey underglaze subsequently poured over the whole was of course resisted by the wax but lots of his colour has almost disappeared under the grey. See the effect on his large platter and on a little triangle dish.  I enjoy the folkloric look to the dots on the edges.

Monique made a point of keeping her colours lighter this time. One of her three plates has angular forms on a shaded blue background and is similar to previous work, but her other two plates are looser, with experimental pours of colour.

I have decided to dispose of new Mayco ‘Stroke & Coat’ colours that wind up as a glaze at cone 04. Other underglazes applied over them bubble up or pop off, and that is not good for a plate that should be functional as well as decorative. Some Raiders now like to paint the underside of their pieces but if they’ve used the glaze-like Mayco product the plate sticks to my kiln shelf in the bisque firing! I do glaze the undersides if they request that but then I use stilts.

Mina painted two of her favourite square plates, but she didn’t finish her third piece, a large round plate so that’s waiting here for another day.

Kate Metten took great pains on the painting of her two coupes. She’ll learn from these two how thick or opaque a finish she is wanting.

And of course Eric Metcalfe’s work is always recognizable and bold. He took his second plate home to finish.

Last Friday’s Raiders were interested to see how the previous group’s work had turned out. They all have such different ways of approaching the curved surface of my slab plates. I hope they enjoy the process and are pleased with their work. Marlene took these plates with her at the end of Friday’s session and has left them with Eric at Western Front – so I hope the five earlier Raiders have now collected their work from there.

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