Above is a photo I took of the bottom of a finished and fired cup that I made recently. It translates so well into a graphic photo. Although I’m hooked on the bright colors of my recent work, I can’t get over the black and white design. The pots just come out so well and they have such visual contrast that they will make great entries for future exhibitions. I’ve been doing more ink drawings lately, and I just bought a new sketchbook a couple of weeks ago.

I drew this chickadee on the first day I bought the new sketchbook. It was a quick study from an instagram photo that I was looking at on my phone. The day before I drew it, I was watching little birds flit from tree to tree in the back yard covered in fresh snow. There were these tiny black and white birds that caught my eye, and I read “The Tracker” not too long ago. It had a passage about chickadees flying around in a blizzard, and described how they were always so happy and optimistic, even when all of the other birds went under cover from the snow storm. After seeing the birds in the back yard, I looked up photos of chickadees and was happy to see that it was the exact same bird. I’m not much of a bird watcher. I know the obvious ones like bluebirds, blue jays, hawks, cardinals, crows, and magpies, but I have never purchased a bird field guide or anything to give me exact names for the unique birds I see here in Massachusetts. After drawing this bird, I decided that I would draw some pots purely in black ink on white paper with no color frivolities or black colored pencil shading like my other sketches of pots.

What I came up with is this (above). I’m drawing the black and white pots and making new business cards and graphics for Etsy and Facebook. They are clean, dramatic, and represent my new work really well. I put the cup from the top photo on Etsy. You can find it here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/215623238/small-cup?ref=shop_home_active_2

Also, feel free to check out my Facebook page, Kira Call Ceramics, here at this link: https://www.facebook.com/kiracallceramics