A Runner's Plate

I've been running with a running group in my neighborhood for 3 or 4 years now.  It's a great group of gals and we have a super awesome running coach.  The group is full of a range of ages and loads of different skill levels.  I am in the bottom rung of skill levels.  I don't particularly like to run races.  I train just because I like the group.  Some days I like running and other days not so much, but I definitely don't want to stop.

One of my favorite things about running group (aside from all the fabulous gals) are the Runner Night's Out (RNOs).  We do all kinds of things, visit the local pub, take a group yoga class but recently we had an entirely different kind of RNO.  We went to the Mud Room.  No, nothing like you are thinking.  No wrestling was involved and we didn't leave covered in brown muck.  This Mud Room is a local pottery painting place (tho. they have fused glass as well).

I love crafts but I'm not so good at drawing and painting.  I'm more of a yarny kinda gal.  So... I did a little prep work to create some crayon drawings of what I hoped to copy onto a piece of pottery.  What do you think?

As you can tell - I was playing around with some HAPPY colors - happy was my inspiration.  The crayon drawing in the back was what I liked best.  The actual painting in front is my un-fired painting job on a round platter.  I think it looks like I imagined.

The whole experience was a lot of fun - esp. in a group setting where we ate and ahem... drank...

And created all sorts of art work painting on china/pottery pieces.

Here are some of the gals and me at the event:

Roxane is hard at work painting carrots on her platter and that's Yoonie in the background telling some really good story I'm sure.

Here is Meg, Maria, (our fab coach, JoAnn) and Sandy (standing).  Meg even created TWO pieces while she was there.

This one is Carol (making a Halloween Platter - apparently there is an annual Halloween bash at her house that we all invited ourselves to!) and me making my flowers.

Apparently I am hard in concentration on this one - and there is Jen over my shoulder in the pink.  Megan was on the other side of her.  Everyone's project was so diverse but all of them were really great!

This is all of us - our pottery masterpieces are on the table in front of us, and Andrea (far left front) is our running group friend who owns the Mud Room!

When I showed up Tuesday morning, in the very humid and hot weather for the final spring group run session, JoAnn had my plate all fired and waiting for me to take home!  WOW!  That was fast - and I love my platter - it's so awesome.  It's happy and shiny and bright - just like I wanted.

Here is the back:

And the front !!!!