Thursday 16 April 2015

Summerhouse progress - the last shingle!


Our ceramics tutor Nancy Fuller sent me the photo above a couple of days ago.  It is one of my onigawara roof ridge end tiles I made at our evening class.  There's some photos of the first stages in this blog post from last autumn.  I used a very gritty black sculpture clay which had a lot of iron in it, giving a solid black after firing but looking very rusty (and messy) while working with it.  The white lines were incised and filled with white slip.  One onigawara has the kanji 日 (hi, day) and the other has 月 (tsuki, moon).  My design was inspired by the onigawara below. 


 While I was away over Easter, Glyn finished off the shingles above the door, in a sunray fan design.


The design looks rather like the corner of a Shinto shrine - I'm not sure what style of shrine architecture this is, but the photo below shows the radiating veranda decking on the small local shrine near Reiko Domon's family home in the countryside near Yuza-machi.


Tonight, Glyn finished the very last of the shingles on the sides of the front wall.



 

We've got a lot of kindling from all the scraps from shaping the shingles around the doors, windowframes and eaves.


 In the last rows, every piece has to be cut and shaved to the correct thickness to fit perfectly.

 





Nailing the very last shingle in place!



Glyn's got a real sense of achievement tonight.


2 comments:

Barbara said...

I have really enjoyed watching the creative process and physical progress. Both of you have to be smiling from ear to ear with what you have accomplished !

Susie Q said...

And I am glad you have a "record" of "the end" of the shingles.