Glamis Road Allotment footring

Display construction

We decide to make a Scottish-style dresser in MDF. We had considered having a beautiful dresser made in Scottish oak, but we felt this might detract from the plates and cups, and they story that they are telling. It may be that an oak dresser will be required, but at least this dresser will act as a model for that one, in terms of getting the proportions and sizes correct.

Glamis Road Allotment clay plate making

Review of the plates so far

Second big decorating night - Clephanton Farm plate

Second big decorating night - Pillars of Hercules plate

These QR codes weren't working, so we scratched them off.

Second big decorating night - Reekies Garage plate

First big decorating night - Pittormie Farm plate

This post shows how the QR codes are printed onto the plate, using the laser cut foam stamps.

First big decorating night - Pillars of Hercules plate

First big decorating night - Crail Beach plate

First big decorating night - Clephanton Farm

First big decorating night - Clentrie Farm plate

First big decorating night - general scenes

The pressure is on to decorate these plates so that we can get them delivered on time, so there is a long night ahead of us...

Printing and drawing the QR codes

Slipping Reekies Garage plates

Slipping Crail clay plates

Laser cutting QR code stamps

We want to draw our QR codes, rather than print them, because it is an interesting juxtaposition of the digital and the hand made. We like the idea of one of the most ancient human technologies (firing earth)  meeting one of the more recent ones (computing). At some point in the future, humans may wonder what these strange squares are all about, but they are likely to still know what a plate is for.

Still, getting the QR code onto the plate in a simple way, so it could be drawn, was proving a challenge.

Crail Beach clay plate footring

The base of the plate is now dry enough, after two days, to have the footring added without collapsing.

This is how the white clay slip is applied to the leather hard plate. The white clay is a ball clay from Devon. It is very difficult to find white clay in Scotland, though we are trying. The white clay is used to provide a contrast, so that we are able to draw through it with our designs.

Drying the base of Crail clay plates

The rims of plates tend to dry out first and so shrink slightly, hich causes them to rise up a little. In order to get the middle of the plate to catch up with the drying rim, I flip the plates over and put a dry bat (the disk potters throw on) on top and then flip the plates back over again. The dry bat draws out some of the moisture in the base.