A Commonwealth Charger for Dame Louise Martin By Hannah McAndrew Autumn 2023
I started by working out which flowers might represent the six regions of the Commonwealth. From there I needed to work out how to best represent them with the deliberately narrow palette that I use and the manner in which I can draw with my slip trailing tools. This is a page from my sketch book.
The charger is made from a large slab of red earthenware clay which I carefully put into a mould. I use the mould to form the shape of the charger and to support the piece while I decorate it. The red clay is coated with a layer of white slip, or liquid clay, which forms my decorative background. The image shows the freshly slipped charger sitting in it’s mould.
These are my slip trailing tools. I make them from bicycle inner tubes, propelling pencils and demijohn corks. Each of the four is filled with a different coloured slip. These are what I use to draw out the designs onto my pots.
Here the majority of the design is drawn out in black slip ready to be filled in.
By this point the different blooms are beginning to be completed, details of dots and veins are being added.
The details of the presentation were slip trailed onto the reverse.
The finished charger being presented to Dame Louise Martin by HRH Prince Edward.