Flower and Vegetable Show

I am currently working on a series of pieces for an exhibition at Kestle Barton Gallery in Cornwall. The exhibition is called In Abundance and is based on a tradition flower and vegetable show.

http://www.kestlebarton.co.uk

There were 6 categories you could submit work into and I chose Insect Life, but added a Katie touch by changing it to Insect Life and Death.

I'm currently in the final stages of making a series of 5 plates that commemorate the TOP 5 GARDEN PESTS of 2010, as stated by the Royal Horticultural Society, the plates share some of the weird and wonderful facts I discovered while researching and ways to deter these perilous pests...

for example - when a slug or snail crawls over copper, its slime reacts with the metal causing a toxic reaction and shocking the snail!

I'm also doing some illustrations inspired by delightful historic pesticide advertisements such as 'SLUG DEATH' "better than arsenic", but illustrating todays non-chemical methods of pest control.

Heres some bits of artwork for the plates... photos of the real things to follow when they're done. As long as they don't crack/explode/severely warp in the kiln (TOUCH WOOD!) they are in the glaze firing as I type.

The foxy is a personal fav (he's on the Chafer Grub plate (Garden Pest equal no.3), as larger animals like foxes and badgers and crows oh ah, did up the lawn to have a munch on them).