Ceramics

I spent most of my weekend working on rewrites for my short stories. With the help of my editor, I lost many words but tightened my stories, so I am pleased with the progress. My goal is to have all stories completely finished and ready to publish by April 30th.

This week I want to start a stain glass project, continue with the ceramic projects, and continue with the writing, as well as write this blog.

Ceramics -- I first became aware of this craft when I was in my 20s when I made chess sets, banks, lamps, clocks, and bowls and dishes. Through the years I remembered enjoying the work and the camaraderie. So, it was a natural that I would return to good memories when I moved into this active adult community and became involved that I would return to painting the ceramic pieces.

My first piece was a small bowl/dish of seashells. As you can tell, I painted this in shades of brown, and I felt pretty good with the finished
product.

I liked the small bowl so well, I decided to try my hand with a larger bowl. Here, I painted the shells differently and for the bottom, I glued sand to the base to give it a beachy feel. This is one of my favorite pieces. I love all the shades of blue and I use it in my bathroom for hair products. I have since learned that there is grain paint that you can use to give it the pebbly look. Both of these were painted with either easy stroke or cover coat with the inside a glaze. Because both are glazed on the inside I could use either to serve food.

                                              This is a close-up of two of the shells.

Still wanting to paint in the shell mode, my next project was a large clam.

This large clam's outside is painted with pearlized white glaze. The inside is turquoise glaze. It has smalls bumps that could have been painted over the turquoise making the bumps appear as pearls, but if I would have used that paint then I never could have used the dish to serve chips or other snacks because without the glaze the paint is toxic. So, I opted to leave the bumps turquoise. I did put pearl beads in the bowl, but they did not look right, so I left it as is. I have received many complements on this dish.

For me, painting ceramics is relaxing (unless I am doing detail work, which I will show later this week). As well, I like the talk during the painting process.

Until tomorrow....have a great day.