Green be your woods

Green be your woods and fair your flow’rs

Your waters never drumlie

There summer first unfald her robes

And there the longest tarry

Burns’ beautiful lines always make me think of a sea of bluebells in the woods, so ravishing a sight at this time of year.  I’ve tried to catch the duskiness of that blue on this bowl, the glow in the shadows, by using a clay very slightly darker than my usual creamy white – this one’s like unbleached linen – with the bluebells painted in a similar tone. The text is lettered by brush in dark green round the flared rim of the bowl:

with the bluebells and their lovely strappy leaves spread out in a spray across the bowl’s expanse.  This pot was thrown on the wheel with 2kg of stoneware clay, the foot turned, and then I decorated the text and foliage with a brush in underglaze oxides. Then the bowl was fired twice, first to fire the colour into the clay body, then to fire the clear glaze into the clay’s surface. I made it with a group of other meadow pots, some with flowering rosemary and thyme, some with primroses and cowslips.

Signed one-off, 25cm across x 7cm high, for sale £70 now sold.

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