Gluggle jugs!

Posted on January 14, 2024January 14, 2024 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Competition, Fish, Gladstone Pottery, gluggle jug, Great pottery throw down, Life, Sketching, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

I just watched the Great Pottery throwdown filmed at the Gladstone pottery in Stoke on Trent. The contestants were asked to create a matching pair of Gluggle Jugs. The characteristic noise or glug they make is caused by air trapped inside when they are filled with water and the glugs happen when the water is poured out… The creations were wonderful and the head judge Keith Brymer-Jones was overwhelmed with the skill of the contestants.

Here is a paragraph from the Internet about their development, I couldn’t see an author.

Originally known as Glug Glug Jugs, they were first made by Thomas Forester & Son in Staffordshire during the late 1800’s, but it was the adaptations created by the Dartmouth Pottery, designed to look like a fish and aptly named Gurgling Fish Jugs, that are more recognised (and replicated) today.3 Oct 2022

I decided to try and draw one to show what they look like. Artrage app finger painting.

I used this for the prompt ‘new’ on our #bandofsketchers challenge as it is a new series.

Red dragon

Posted on April 7, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Dragon, Drawing, Gladstone Pottery, Pottery, Red, red dragon, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Victorian design, Wales4 Comments

Two years ago we were visiting the Gladstone Pottery museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. I saw this design for a red dragon and took a photo. I think it was a panel explaining the glazing techniques for getting the red colouration. I believe reds are quite difficult to produce?

Red dragons are the symbol for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales, but this does not look like it. At the moment I’m trying to create a map for a maze/garden and this is another possibility to base it on. We will see…

Falcon Pottery

Posted on November 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Digital filter, Gladstone Pottery, Industrial museum, Middleport pottery, Museum, Photo, PotteryLeave a comment

Used a photodirector filter to give this photo a bit of a twist. The building is semi derelict like many others in Stoke-on-Trent. They sit huddled in the landscape, settling gently into decay. Some owners of the old pot banks just leave them. Maybe one day to be renovated. At one stage there were plans to turn some of them in museums. But money doesn’t come this way very often. We are lucky to have places like the Gladstone pottery museum and Middleport pottery open for visitors, but so many more are falling down. A sad situation.

Our history

Posted on December 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Gladstone Pottery, Life, Rain, Sketching, Stoke urban sketchers, Stoke-on trent, Sunshine, WeatherLeave a comment

Potbank, Stoke-on-Trent. I think I drew this at the Gladstone Pottery museum last year? This was part of a ‘throw down’ held by Stoke Urban Sketchers after an afternoon of drawing in rain and shine. We were in a covered area so we could put the drawings down on the ground.

Urban sketchers usually draw outside, so we need to wrap up warm when we go out in the winter, and shelter when it’s raining or windy.

Next year I want to go out with them more often. You get to see places you might not go to otherwise.

Rose bowl

Posted on August 5, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Ceramics, Gladstone Pottery, Life, Longton, Pottery, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent4 Comments

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This is my kind of pottery. The beautiful contrasting colours and patterns really appeal to me. This was in the Gladstone pottery museum last year, in the bathroom display section.

If I had it at home I would use it as a fruit bowl. There seems to be a bird or a parrot in the centre of the bowl. Beautiful piece.

Enamel kiln

Posted on July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black Country museum, Cheshire, Dudley, Gladstone Pottery, Industrial archaeology, Industrial heritage, Longton, Memories, Middlewich, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, West MidlandsLeave a comment

Enamel kiln at Gladstone pottery museum, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. These burn hotter than a normal pottery kiln. This is to create enamel from powdered glass, fired about 1400°C. There is a working enamel kiln at Stevensons in Middlewich on the banks of the Trent and Mersey canal. Enamels are used from jewellery to bathroom ware. This is because it has to be stronger and not chip or crack.

The industrial heritage of this country is hanging on. Places like the Black Country museum in Dudley in the West Midlands give us a place to see how the past was. Manufacturing changes and evolves. Soon robots and AI might be the only way things are made. But despite the old dirty polluting past may have been bad, it still stirs memories and romantic ideas of the way things were.

Today’s artwork

Posted on January 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on board, Art, Gladstone Pottery, Painting, Pantomime, Pottery, Scenery6 Comments

Last week I painted Edinburgh Castle and the London Eye. Today I finished them off by brightening the colours and adding some fireworks.

Today I painted a couple of bottle ovens which I slightly based on the Gladstone pottery in Longton.

I hope you like them.

Today at Gladstone

Posted on September 22, 2018September 22, 2018 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Bottle ovens, Drawing, Gladstone Pottery, Kilns, Longton, Sketching, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent6 Comments

I’m in a group called urban sketchers. Today we braved the wind and cold and went out to draw and sketch there. I got quite chilly and damp but it was worth it. There were about 8 or 9 of us there.

There is so much to see at the Gladstone Pottery museum. Plus there is a nice little shop with Pottery for sale and a good friendly cafe upstairs.

Sited in Longton, Stoke on Trent, the Gladstone Pottery museum shows you the history of ceramics. There is a flushed with success section about toilets and a display of ceramic flower making, pot throwing, an old engine house, a doctors house and surgery. A selection of historical tiles and much more.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Gladstone Pottery