Sustainable Tourism Guides

Ah, back to illustration. I know, it makes a change from pots! Can't be helped sometimes as a lot of my illustration work can't be 'revealed' before it is published and some projects take a while. This was a particularly nice job for Visit Scotland, working with the good folks at Stand in Glasgow. A nice set of 5, A5, fold out guides. I had a lot of fun filling those buses!

Home Sweet Home

A little picture of Texas taken by Daniela Exley as part of a fantastic series she's been taking of various folks homes in Hastings and St Leonards. I'm still not sure it's actually my house, as i seldom see it not knee deep in the kid's plastic junk and discarded Super Hero costumes! It's a good way to snoop around other peoples houses... hope there's no artistically inclined burglars out there!

Jerry Brown

Another potter that really got me into face jugs was Jerry Brown from Hamilton, Alabama. I stumbled across a great little film of him at folkstreams.net (also check out another old potter Sid Luck and the wonderful Grandma Prisbrey (not a potter) then have a browse at all the other great stuff.) Jerry is one of those great old timers and man can he throw a jug, absolutely no nonsense functionality. Now some of his face jugs can get a little goofy, but you can't not recognise his style. God bless Jerry, i can just watch him throw (sorry USA... "turn") all day long.

Burlon Craig

In the run up to Christmas i came across these brilliant clips of Burlon Craig, one of my favourite face juggers. There are 2 films in 2 parts, grab a cuppa, sit back and enjoy!. Burlon was a very important link between the early face juggers and the current crop. Few kept the tradition going, but Burlon became a key figure. I love those grand old groundhog kilns too, what an event. Wish i could have gone to a Burlon kiln opening. Burlon's son Don kept the tradition alive along with others such as Charlie Lisk, Kim Ellington and Joe Reinhardt. Now there are just so many face juggers out there. Good old Burlon... and not forgetting my favourite Lanier Meaders.

Another Owl

While i'm on the theme of 'Owls', here's one i made early last year and as i didn't have clay i built it from thick card tubes wrapped around with scrunched newspaper and coated in modrock. Once that had set i skimmed with polyfilla and then used polyfilla from the tube to "ice" on the feathers. Quick couple of sprays of plasti-kote, bit of painting on eyes and beak, then varnish and hey presto! It worked for me at the time. It's about 10 inches tall and his head comes off for storing bits in, but it's no slipware beauty like Matt's... and Ozzie it most certainly isn't!

Making of the owl

Matt's owl seemed to go down very well.. and so it should!
Here's a little clip of the man in action.

Christmas Owl

I've been very slow to put this up, but look what Santa brought me for Christmas! Actually, it was Jakki that bought it and i'm very grateful to Matt for making it happen, "thanks again Matt". It was such a great surprise and i'm not sure how i feel about Jakki being such a great liar! Jakki had even seen me watching one of Matt's clips from his new space and said "Oh, who's he?" and i'm sat there thinking "you gotta be kidding me??" like she never listens to anything i say! All the time she's sorting this out with Matt for me. Bless. Love these little owls. If i could figure out how to link back to it's birth i would... go to Matt's blog and refresh yourselves!