Transformation

Ceramics is magic. Just a bit of heat and smoke is all it takes to transform this:

To this:

Late winter blue skies

Today dawned clear and blue. I haven't painted outside since autumn but the day was too nice to waste so I took myself up the High Road on Otago Peninsula.

The view over the morning harbour was stunning.

By the time I left the mists had risen and the view was crisper.

Prunus

Spring is arriving. The Prunus beside the ceramics studio is in flower. Yaaaay!

Ceramics

I have never had much of a feel for ceramics and I found the first week in the ceramics workshop rather underwhelming. Slowly though, I realised that you need to develop an eye to appreciate ceramics.

Then yesterday, when we got our first work out of the kiln, I suddenly understood ceramics-enthusiasts. Magically, our mundane pots were transformed into works of art, with crackled pinkish glaze with green and reddish tinges.

These pots were produced with a Raku firing, a Japanese method. It is like an alchemists laboratory with lots of smoke and fire and it turns exposed clay black.

Boots

I have progressed to the ceramics workshop .... from digital art to ceramics, it is quite a jump. We are having a cold snap and the ceramics workshop is not well heated so I have taken to wearing my hiking boots to class. Like everything else in the workshop they get their share of mud spatters. Today I noticed a lot of hiking boots in Queen Street. Sensible footwear for Dunedin in August.

Bubbles

This is a little bit of a poster I made with photoshop on the way to making a movie. In my movie the bubbles float over the Otago landscape.

Movie making

I have been glued to the computer these last two weeks, creating a 2 minute movie and learning the software in the process. My first effort was a movie illustrating that where ever we are, we take our history, our friends and family with us. Now I have started on a second which simply creates a sensation similar to the music.

Once I have finished them I shall put them in a box and leave them for a couple of months, then get them out again to see if they were successful.