Pottery continues in Mwadui

Although Amanda has gone out to SA on her break, I continue to complete my pottery projects before I am due to go out! She left several dried items for me to paint with any one or number of paints she also brought to my home. Once I've done the artwork, I will leave these products for her to collect and bake when she returns to Mwadui at the beginning of December.  I only had one item left that had to be decorated but there are several small ones which I am finishing off.

When I first posted about my pottery classes, I was decorating a bowl made by my friend Sonja, who has moved from Dar Es Salaam back to South Africa. Amanda asked me to decorate a bowl which Sonja created when visiting here in September. 

A bowl created by Sonja and decorated by yours truly!

Last week before Tilla went on her break to SA, she brought me the first plate I had created and which she had fired/baked. It looks OK for a first attempt when you consider I have never done any type of hand-painting before and I have never potted before! There were several power dips the day Tilla baked the pottery; she had to restart the oven a few times. I think that is why I have a smudge on the bottom right of my bowl.

 My first attempt at throwing, moulding and decorating a pottery plate. The bird on it is called a Beautiful Sunbird. It is endemic to Tanzania and Kenya but while they very prolific in Kenya, I have not yet seen one here in Mwadui

On Sunday we had a power outage from mid-morning until 7.30pm. I worked on my laptop until the battery icon finally warned me that it had no more life left, so I turned it off. This was a good opportunity for me to make a start on the baked but undecorated pottery that Amanda had left with me. With Grant's help (he drew the trio of cats below, and they looked like cats) and with lots of paint splattered all over my veranda, I managed to finish the spoon rest which was the only other item I'd made at pottery classes. 

The first tile that I decorated for Sonja boasts a cat which I copied from a website for children teaching them to draw cats! Well, I have to start somewhere, don't I?  

My decorated spoon rest was a combined husband-and-wife effort! The tile on the right is the first of many which I am painting for Sonja

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Even though I managed to do this post today, I have had untold problems with Blogger. I don't know if any other readers out there are also experiencing problems with publishing the posts. It takes me a dozens tries before the post is finally published. I also have a message which appears on the top of my post page: "An error has occured while you were posting, please ignore" I click on "please ignore" it jumps back to the post, but often before I even post anything more, the message appears again. Now I have noticed that my blog post for the day doesn't appear on my blog reading list. Please could my dear loyal,regular followers let me know if my post appears on their reading lists? I am at my wits end what to do about the issues. Most frustrating...

I hope you're all having a great day.