As part of the process of reflection I have been using old sketchbooks at school, taking in old ones and using them for ideas. I have taken in the two most recent ones so far but today I took in a spiral bound one from December to February. I used a couple of the drawings today on a couple of plates, one made of bag ends and one rolled up for me by Nawalla. I used an drawing of a lancer with the sword over his head ready to slash down and one of a 18th century merchant sitting behind a table with a couple of boats in the distance behind him. I turned it into a self portrait as an 18th century plate maker with a couple of boats behind him. Meaning myself as some sort of historic figure making the plate I had drawn in the V&A on 15th January but it could well be me as a Lowestoft Porcelain maker, of course. I didn’t do it in blue though, for some reason. Pretty dumb of me not to do it in blue. It did look good though, an obvious idea once I had done it.

Looking through the book though I am struck by how complete the plan is. The sprig making is just getting going, the trip to the V&A sets all sort of things going in the book. The styles, the major themes, the techniques are all planned out in the book. The Grayson Perry pot and the connection to the heroes theme and the start of the work with the children. I, as always, think I have under reported and I have left stuff out and I don’t think the book can have been used every day and some of the referencing is a bit opaque but, on the whole, it is mostly all there. And there are a few ideas I haven’t used in there yet or that could be revisited from this position. The plates that are referred to in the book take me ages to make, it seems. I am so much quicker and more fluent with them now. Assuming I can get them out of the kiln, anyway.