Liquid Gold

Ok, I went out on an expensive limb and bought some metallic gold luster. The stuff is tiny and dear but it is super popular on ceramics and pottery right now. Here are some of the results:

It is hard to photograph gold!!! There are tiny dots of it in the butterfly wings, and little dots here and there.

I played around with the design of the Texas ring dishes...which one works best?

I made a little diagram where you can see where I pointed out some of the gold.

I used Duncan's bright gold and had 1 fail sadly but the rest worked out ok.

Detail of Gypsy Soul mug where the gold is reflecting.

Namaste Ya'll

Here are some glazing process photos- basically what I've been slowly working on all week.

 Mugs awaiting clear glaze and then birds and butterflys and foxes will be added.

This bird decal will be added on the fly free mug to give it a lift.

Here I've added some orange glaze to give a pop of color under the butterfly decal.

This Namaste mug won't get a decal...but it is hand-painted with glaze in a watercolor like effect on both sides. The inside of the mug is rimmed with lavender and red in a painterly style with no crisp edges. I love the idea of Namaste - roughly translated to -"the spirit in me greets the spirit in you". It makes me want to do yoga in a room with large picture windows overlooking nature and then sipping chai tea in bliss when I'm done :)

Live Free

I just pulled this new "Live Free" wall plaque out of my kiln along with some other decal lovelies:

New mugs

So I finished firing those mugs I wrote about last week. They came out good...but now I am considering adding gold to them, and other mugs I do.

I glaze fired them, then applied the decals and fired them again at a lower temperature. I am really loving the decals! 

Detail on back of owl mug...because you never know which hand you'll be using! I find that I drink more with my left hand now that I'm feeding the baby with my right.

This bird is super cute to me- he's just chillin' :)

I also love putting little details on the inside because it is nice to see when your beverage is getting low, or when you are washing the dishes.

 

Easy Tiger! I planned on 3 but they were smaller than I thought so I added a fourth one.

As always, you can purchase these items in my Etsy shop TinyHappyClay.etsy.com

Decal Dreamin'

I've been busy throwing more mugs this week. My last set with decals (only 2) was so satisfying when I pulled them out of the kiln, that all I can think about is decals. How to incorporate them into my work, what should I make to put them on, what other types of clipart can I find to utilize?

Unfortunately decals aren't cheap to print, I ordered mine from Trinity Decal and come to find out, they have them printed in the UK! 1 sheet was incredibly expensive with the shipping almost doubling the price. I still have quite a few left on the one sheet I ordered but I can already think of half a dozen other types of designs I wish I had ordered!

So now I'm trying to get enough stuff made to utilize the decals I have left and I can't seem to get into the studio fast enough...it seems my 1 yr old isn't crazy about the idea of me paying attention to something other than her. Here are some mugs and bowls I've been working on:

I have been playing in photoshop a bit to get ideas for my next designs. Here are some of the results. We'll see how they turn out.

Three cheers for decals -  my new obsession!

Ceramic Decal Love

Happy Friday!

Here are some new mugs I fired...my first attempt at waterslide decals.

I love them! I hand painted some details on the inside and back and fired them. Then I applied the decals and fired them again at a lower temp. I'm looking forward to more experimentation!