I can sit there in nature and soak it up in ways that are different to just passing through. Sure I get hot and sweaty and always manage to sit in a rocky spot with angry ants.

The light as it shifts, the whisper of the breeze in the eucalypts and against my skin, the smell of the air, the birds that come and go and how they interact with each other and their surrounds, my cows with their nose in my paint. These are my rewards. These beautiful subjects are from my 5 acre home. Favourite haunts that I am privileged to observe often.

Flowers from my garden are another obsession, sometimes I even buy flowers!. I love trying to capture the colour and liveliness. A little pocket of joy preserved to lighten your space 🙂

The post Painting from life in the sun and shade first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

My glaze development followed the same structure – I would decide what ingredients would surely produce the delightful glaze I imagined and proceed to mix a 20 litre bucket of it. So confident was I in my imagination that it shocked me when the resulting glazes turned out to be awful.

Eventually I got sick of having 20 litre buckets of useless glaze and applied myself to testing small amounts.

No one would call my approach today particularly tidy or precise but I do have a book where I write down every damn time I try something new. If I change anything in the kiln I…write….it …..down!

When there is going to be months or years between when I try something that turns out nicely, and when I come back to use it again, I have learned to write……….it ………..down!

I went through a stage of laboriously testing and developing a set of glazes to pour on and layer with. All that effort didn’t really produce what I wanted.

One of my early mentors Paddy Bambling generously shared her glazes (if you are at convention hit me up I am happy to pass them on.)

Today I use 6 favourite glazes collected over time. At least half of which have Paddy’s celadon as their base.

When I knew her Paddy raw glazed (once firing). A process of applying glaze to raw pots at the leather hard stage instead of bisque firing and then glazing.

Initially, I too raw glazed enthusiastically, and couldn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through unpacking and packing a kiln just to bisque.

As a working parent I now bisque – that perfect leather hard stage seems impossible to catch. It is hard to let go of my high clay raw glazes even though I feel they might be limiting the effects I can achieve. I have introduced one clear glaze low in clay from another generous potter Jackie Gasson but I get frustrated when I bump things and it chips off easily. I also stick to minerals I believe to be reliably safe food and slightly less toxic if I get it all over me. I use iron, rutile, talc, tin, zinc and cobalt for inside cups and bowls. Commercially prepared underglazes are great for a bit of colour.

At the moment I am enjoying discovering how to get the best out of my six glazes. Dialing in on exactly what they can do. Thanks to the 3-cone temperature difference in my aged, and well-traveled gas kiln, I am learning what each of my glazes look like at different temps.

it’s amazing how many different effects I can make with six glazes. The bisque ware tolerates the application of more layers of glaze than the leatherhard clay. So I layer glazes in different combinations and I write down what I do. Sometimes I add light glaze decoration in the making stage and bisque that to add more depth.

 A hydrometer is a very useful tool that i have found helps me achieve consistent results. Each time I use my glaze I can make it exactly the same thickness.  I think I got this idea from Janet Deboos at a WBBPA convention but I can’t remember for sure. I have attached a couple of weblinks here to give you an idea how to DIY

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Hydrometer

https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/Make-Your-Own-Hydrometer-for-Glazing-Success

I would still like to develop the skill of visualizing a glaze and proceeding to test and create it. It is just not where my life is right now!

The post How my approach to glazing has changed over the years first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

I will start with a little reel snapshot of the best bits of march. Followed by my every day drawings as they happen in April. I am beginning to sneak up on the thing I want most to learn. How to draw PEOPLE. Stay tuned and catch my drawings at Amy Wood Artist on facebook and instagram. links at the bottom of this website.

The post April – One year drawing challenge first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

The Surat on Ballone art gallery is the venue for a show of work by Kathy Ellem, Catherine Clark Dowden and myself.

It was lovely to spend time and get to know these two artists more. I came home with renewed respect for each of them and what they have achieved. Also new determination to keep working and learning myself.

Kathy compiled some amazing videos of the work we did out there and I am sharing them here cause I love them 🙂 and they tell the story so well.

A really interesting, scary and fun thing we did was a demo at the opening where we all three of us took turns working on 3 paintings. It was actually way out of my comfort zone to paint on top of someone else’s paint. They turned out great though and it was an up close look at individual technique!

Another little highlight was dinner every night with Jennifer and her family – thanks guys :)!

https://www.facebook.com/surat.on.balonne

The post “Connections” friendship, fun and growth first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

It bears the scars!

The most difficult part of pottery is that it will break.

I have turned suddenly and bumped precious things or placed them down not quite right and %#*@Smash!. That’s the end. Some people I know keep their mugs, safely in a cabinet just for decoration, and they are beautiful.

If you feel as I do, that the pleasure of using a handmade mug everyday is worth the risk, here are some tips to help yours last:-

The fine lip will chip if it is knocked against a hard surface, so stack them a little apart in the dishwasher.

If hand washing – put the mugs through the sink one at a time so as not to knock them against each other.

Over a period of time and use pots sometimes develop a hairline crack – as shown on the mug pictured. I am still using mine and so far it is holding up. This mug is showing normal wear and tear.

Having said that the making and firing process can be quite harsh. I check all my pots over carefully as I sand the bottoms after they come out of the kiln – looking for any flaws or cracks. If you are at all concerned that I missed a flaw or crack on your pot please let me know.

The post How to look after your handmade mugs first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

I am learning! I am connecting! I am really seeing! I am having TREMENDOUS FUN!

The post My first month successfully nailed! first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

The post Damn! first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

So when life finally takes a breath, I am my own woman once more and I do frivolous things.

Yesterday I pootled down to the creek. It delights me. We have had the most beautiful rain. The creek has been up and settled back down to a clear bubbling flow, over the rocks and sand. I took my sketchbook to take in the sights and see what appealed.  It felt good to lean lazily against a tree. There was an amazing  flutter of dragonflies and Butterflies whizzing above the water. I had a crack at drawing them.

Drawing

Well………………..have you ever tried to draw dragonflies from life? They pause for a tiny moment and then whizz off somewhere else. I ended up with a sketchbook full of dynamic scribble. My eyes could see but my processing speed was much slower than the dragonflies. ‘Which bit goes where – what shape is that? Oh it’s gone’!

It made me feel alive. In his book “Understanding Comics” Scott Mcloud talks about the vocabulary of comics. He goes into and fun and fascinating detail on how we use icons and symbols as a visual language that our brain understands. My pottery has always featured dragonflies and butterflies as no more than an icon. Trying to capture their graceful energetic movement over the creek on a sunny day made me realize how much there is to convey and how inadequate my attempts. But how much fun!

Or photographs?

Today I decided sensibly to try and take some photos to help me with the understanding.

Well………………………………….. have you ever tried to take a photo of a dragonfly flying??? I have thousands of photos of very clear grass with very blurry little spots in front! And 2 or 3 clear but tiny dragon fly photos! The camera was slower than my eyes.

Even this process increased my fascination. One particulary large dragonfly was my target as he consistently flew up and down the same 5 metre track. I had no idea but can tell from the couple of photos I did get that their front and back wings move separately and are off set to each other ???  What was the aim of this consistent loop? Then the sun went behind a cloud and all activity suddenly stilled. What were they doing that made the sun necessary? Facsinating! I sketched some more and will keep trying to capture that energy!

The post The peaceful fascination of pootling down to the creek first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

I remember reading many years ago in the little Gayndah Gazette paper that they were upgrading to a bigger glossy magazine. At the time I was living in the city and just visiting my parents but I remember thinking it was a pretty cool idea.

Since then I have moved back to my home town. I feel like I want to put it out there how much I admire the job Tiffany does with the North Burnett News. She was the owner behind the upgrade. The paper is now weekly and has grown from Gayndah to encompass the whole North Burnett.

I feel its pretty special to have such a professionally presented, enjoyable read, right here in our community.

Before 2019 Gayndah Gazette and After 2025 North Burnett News

The post Celebrating our local paper first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.

‘The paintings of Criss Canning’ – The house and garden at Lambley is a book I only came across by accident.

My son and I were on the weary journey to Brisbane for his medical appointments. We had stopped at Goomeri for a little bakery treat to cheer us up.

The bakery was closed, a little book shop Wimberly and Co was open. My legs needed stretching anyway and I find bookshops hard to resist. We were almost ready to go when the deep red spine of this book caught my eye in the art section. I’m sorry peeps but the cover of this book is incredible and the inside fulfills every promise that the cover makes!

Criss Canning has a garden, and ok, it’s also for her husband’s nursery business but they grow flowers just to paint them. Imagine… suddenly I have permission to keep doing the kind of paintings that thrill me. I have already begun to tend my garden, not just for amazing food, but because I feel it is food for my art, here is encouragement to keep at it. Criss Cannings paintings are so colourful and refined and beautiful and very very inspiring!

The post The inspirational paintings of Criss Canning first appeared on Amy Wood Artist.