plates

I had an unexpected glimpse of a roe deer lying in the wood, through a gap in the hedge as we walked along the edge of the wheat this morning. I just saw her head in the tail of my eye, turned my head to look, and kept on going as she was very near. she was in a patch of dappled sun, ears and head up. they are ruminants, so need to lie up to chew the cud for a proportion of the day.

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a succession of glorious mornings continues, providing so many pretty summer pictures its hard to know when to stop.

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cow parsley, red campion.

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now I am looking more carefully at the roadside trees I have identified another – field maple, our only native maple tree, and a small one. the leaves are glossy, with delicate green flowers.

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the oak trees are in flower too, tassels of male catkins and long female flowers.

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this is the usual quercus robur, “pedunculus” of the hedgerow, complete with oak apple – a mutation of a leaf caused by chemicals injected by the larvae of certain kinds of wasp. the other native, sessile, oak have stalks to their leaves, which robur doesn’t, and no stalks to their acorns, and are usually found in cooler upland areas. there is in fact a small turkey oak in the hedgerow.

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back home in the workshop, here are some plates I was asked to make by a friend. they are a larger version of my glaze test tiles; I used the S&T material white grogged stoneware instead of porcelain, not having enough porcelain at present, but I will try out Valentine’s grogged porcelain for this project.

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the kiln is almost full for the next biscuit firing.

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One Comment

  1. ooooooooooooo – plates look exciting. Can’t wait to see how they turn out. The black crank from your other post too…mmmmmmm
    xx

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