The last day of the holidays
Today my sister and I took Zebra-girl to the local pottery-painting shop and spent a happy two hours playing around with all the lovely paint colours they have on the tables.
Each table has wheels of colours that you can turn around. The colours in the bottles look very different to the final glazed colours, so they've put out little tiles of finished colour samples that correspond to each of the numbered bottles. I love these greens and yellows together. 
On the wall they have more colour samples, showing how the intensity of each colour builds depending on whether you have applied one, two or three coats.
It is a lovely homely place, full of noise and conversations. We didn't talk too much, as we were all concentrating on the designs we were attempting to paint...but afterwards I realised that I must have at least been listening....as I'd learnt an alarming amount about the lady sitting at the other end of our long shared table!
Above are the designs that my sister and I did. Laura's will be a very vibrant blue once glazed, similar to some Chinese-style plates that we had as children, and mine will be creamy golds (last time I did this I painted the same design in red and pink...but today I wanted one that's a little more subtle to go on my dressing table). I'm returning to apply some actual gold paint next week, but apparently this requires a different temperature in the kiln, so couldn't be done today.
Zebra-girl picked a trinket box to paint and patiently gave it the third coat that she felt it needed (despite looking like energy-wise she would really have rather left it at two). On the way home we stopped off to buy Zebra-girl some wellies in preparation for the snow tomorrow. They are fleece-lined and pink. Perfect.My sister is going home tomorrow, Zebra-girl goes back to school and Dinosaur-boy returns to nursery the following day. 'We're all going back out again, mummy, while you stay at home' he said tonight. I am trying hard not to feel a little glum...but what lovely memories of a happy Christmas we will have.
What a great day out and with the prospect of snow tomorrow! Miss T and I used to love going to Bridgwater to paint and we haven't done that since we moved back to London. we used to go on the Friday before school started as a final fling of the holidays! Hope the snow is lots of fun and you will be able to build a snowman, we are hoping we can.
ReplyDeleteYour designs look really great. Whenever I've done this type of thing it ends up looking truly amateurish!
ReplyDeleteIt looked idyllic, your christmas :) Don't be glum - all this means is new adventures: new and different and exciting. All at once sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun day out with your sister and daughter. And I envy you sending the little ones off to school and nursery next week and you getting to enjoy the quiet. Next week we will *all* be off to school and nursery, alas.
ReplyDelete