Before leaving school on Friday I emptied the kiln of its glazed contents. Some very fine examples of heavily oxided plates under green glazes. Very pleasing. Some cracks here and there but pretty interesting results.

The old paint cupboard is stacked with plates ready for a biscuit firing next week when we return from half term. Altogether there are about sixty plates in the boxes and on the shelves. The aim of a hundred seems possible, just about. Stopping the project at that point having made one piece of work called ‘One Hundred Plates About Art Teaching’ seems about right. All I have to do is find somewhere to put it.

I got some ceramic paints from Great Art on Friday so I can paint some blanks up over the half term ready for glazing and this will get the score up further. Quantity is a quality, as Lenin had it.

Finished off the big red sketchbook yesterday. This is an 80 page German sketchbook from Great Art which has become something of a beast to carry about. It has been tough though and has taken a lot of punishment over the six weeks of use. Obviously, it has to carry on taking abuse as it gets worked over and used as an example on the summer school at SARU. The next book is the same sort of book in black and I am going up to NUCA on Wednesday to try to custom make one as an example. This seems to be the ultimate learning journal; one you design and build yourself. Whether I can make it as tough as these fantastic German books I don’t know. Should be prettier though.