Hey, how have you been?

Sorry for the long absence people!! I have been loving twitter lately - If you're on twitter and want to follow me I'm @princedesignuk - say hi! Over there, I have been following some really interesting people and consequently some great blogs. Especially loving remodelista designmilk and bright bazaar this week who have all kept me entertained whilst I recovered from an unexpected hospital trip and weekend in bed with some kind of bad gastro bug thing... Thankfully I am much better and back to work :) Firing this week for an interior designer and her client is a large group of these porcelain and silver butterflies:

I am super excited to see how these work in her space, so really hope she'll send me a pic or two even if it's not one I can share. A big part of my art education focussed on installation art, so it is great to put some of those principles into a domestic space. I love the way that these are so affected by the space, and interact with the shapes of the walls, textures beneath them, and other objects in the space. I'm hoping to install an even bigger group for a gallery show later in the year too. Another reason for the absence has been the scouting for new premises, which hopefully has now been found... One or two t's to be crossed and then all being well, the studio move will happen in the next week or two - wish me luck guys it's gonna be messy!!!

Back from my break!

Hello all, I am back in the UK and eating, sleeping and breathing hand made ceramics and pottery this week! It is good to be back in the studio and took a few weeks just to catch up with orders!
I am fairly up to date now, and so there has been a little time for experimenting with new ranges such as this little peacock bowl...



I have been looking a lot at peacocks lately, and there will be more peacocks in the future I am sure! So beautiful! I used a real peacock feather imprinted into the surface to make the texture on this one. When you really look at peacocks, they are completely amazing! I love the repetitive pattern of their feathers and their showy ways! I have also been having some fun drawing them, and I shall share some of the drawings soon.

I am also really looking forward to spending a day soon with the lovely website designer as we intend to tweak my website a touch.
So back to work for me! Incidentally, I interact quite a bit through my facebook page, so if you're interested, check it out here.

Prince Design UK...

will be on holiday from 14th Feb until the 5th March 2012.
If you wish to order any of our ceramic pieces for dispatch before we close, please make sure your order reaches us by this Sunday night, 12th Feb. Otherwise, it will not be dispatched until early March - sorry!
I may not be contactable during this time either - very sorry about that - we may not have internet access there you see!
Hope you all have a lovely couple of weeks.

Processes

I wanted to make pottery long before I first found a place with the facilities to make it. Consequently, by the time I arrived in the studio for the first time, I had a sketchbook full of ideas. My drawings were ideas that were not massively influenced by the material, because it had been a long time since I had used clay. Of course they were influenced by clay and what I imagined I might be able to do, but not the subtleties of the process of working with clay. Consequently some of the ideas were quite complex and ambitious structures. This was good. It meant that when I began, I had set myself a series of complex challenges.
After a few years of working with clay, I drifted out of sketching my ideas on paper. I made them in clay to sketch them. I made another one to refine the idea rather than rubbing out and redrawing as one would on paper. Drawing continued, but as a thing in its own right. So I gave this some thought a while ago, and decided that there might be something to be gained from returning to my original paper sketching. That it could be interesting to get back to this for a while. So that is what I have been doing. Sketching and researching and sketching and then sketching again some of the ideas, and this time swapping from paper sketching to clay sketching to paper again to clay again and so on. One of the results is that I am developing more and more two dimensional work, and I have been painting too. My new experiments with clay have taken me in unexpected directions. So whilst I am not quite ready to share my experiments with the world just yet, I am very excited about this experimentation and development, and can't wait to get things firmed up into some more finished pieces!

The book is closed!

We have now closed out books for Christmas delivery. The last orders being sent to the UK left today. Among them was a cause for a little celebration - our 2000th etsy sale!!
It coincides with there being enough time to now catch my breath after the Christmas rush, and to pause for thought. It has been a really lovely journey on the whole, and doing this full time was something that once up on a time I didn't think would be possible. I am really grateful to all my customers for having liked my ceramics enough to spend their hard earned cash on them! So to all my customers, past present and future - thank you! And a very Merry Christmas!

New work - Flutter butterfly

I love all things flighty, and butterflies are no exception! I created the texture of vintage embroidery and lace in the surface of these white porcelain butterflies, and stitched them with sterling silver wire. The aim was to make wall art that was like jewelry for walls. They are available as single butterflies in little individual gift boxes (above) or as larger groups as you can see below.

Each one is unique because they are hand made without using a mold. The position of the lace is slightly different on each one, and I really like the variation that this creates.

They're great even for tricky spaces that need dressing up, because the groups can be arranged to suit your space. They're even suitable for bathrooms because they don't mind if things get steamy!

When I made the first few, I tried them out in my studio, and noticed that their shadows change as the light changes through the day. In the evening with a lamp nearby, or in direct sunlight in late afternoon, their shadows are more dramatic, whereas they are softer at other times. What do you think?! Comments welcome!

Does size matter?

Apparently it does to lots of ladies ;) - I have had a lot of requests for larger bowls lately, and so I will be running more of them in my shop. Here is the first one I have produced for general sale:

This bowl features recycled glass from wine bottles, and this melts in the kiln to produce the stunning watery effect you see here. It cools to form a perfectly smooth surface, but has tiny cracks below the surface and they cxatch the light and sparkle. I love the effect! What do you think?