Adding details to ceramic boxes
Butterfly Box
My in-laws have been in town since last weekend and despite the distraction, I’ve managed to make and finish work for the Colorado Potters Guild Show opening at the end of the month. These boxes are still green – or unfired – and will be bisque fired some time early next week. I don’t have as much work as I would have liked, but I am happy with what I have made. The sides of these boxes have intentionally been left with no decoration because I’ll be adding laser toner decals after I have glazed the boxes. BTW, the butterfly sprig and knob (above) and the heart knob (below) were made using a chocolate mold.
Heart Box
I have a few larger boxes, this one included. “Large” is a fairly subjective statement, however, since this only measures 4″ across and tall. I think this one could go many different directions in regards to decal motifs – from the sanguine to more contemporary (I immediately saw tattoo images with the hearts).
Lavender Butterfly Box
For this box, I used underglaze for color and will add decals over the butterflies [one on each side] as an experiment. You may remember my failed attempt several weeks ago when I over fired a bisque load.
Tall Flower Box
Finally, this tall box isn’t terribly practical, but it would be sweet to store wedding rings next to a night stand or sink or as a gift box to present someone with a special gift. The flowers were made from lino-cuts – which I desperately need to expand for more variety! I still have other boxes in varying degrees of being finished, but haven’t photographed them yet. My hand building phase is coming to an end right now, which means it’s time to throw a few things in preparation for the show. I’ve learned that throwing is a much faster process than hand building – but enjoy doing both.
Meanwhile, I reverted to my old Word Press theme while I figure out how to use The Gimp instead of Photoshop to manipulate the images in my file folders. While it’s fairly similar to Photoshop and many of the tools are recognizable, it hasn’t been an intuitive switch for me so I picked up a book called Beginning Gimp by Akkanna Peck yesterday. I was getting frustrating trying to use my old way of working and am determined to make Ubuntu and free open source software work for me. In fact, yesterday I was in Best Buy and I took another look at new cell phones, lap tops – including the MacBook Pro, and really restrained myself from making any hasty buying decisions.
That’s it for today,
~Cynthia
Ceramic Jewelry Box Part 1
Making a domed lid for the jewelry box
I don’t know why I haven’t done this before, but I finally broke away from the square! The idea came to me in a dream – okay, maybe not a dream but a lucid day dream. Then, unexpectedly, I received an email from super talented Texas painter, Jean Levert Hood, who was interested in a custom covered box for her sister’s birthday. Now, I normally don’t do special requests (it’s too much like homework to me), but given her timing, I said, “Sure, as long as I can experiment a bit….”
Box with domed lid before cutting lid off
I set out to create a two level jewelry box that was longer than wide with a domed lid since I liked the square one I made recently. This is white ^6 stoneware and measures 6″w x 5″h (with dome, walls are 4″ hight) x 4″d.
Bottom interior of jewelry box
I like solving design challenges. When I decided to create a 2 tier box, I had to create a support system for the top level of the box since an insert will sit on top of the bottom level. What you don’t see in the photo above are the side supports. I added those after I placed the insert in and found that it wobbled.
The divided tray will form second layer inside the jewelry box
Since I’ve already closed up the box, I don’t have any photos of the 2nd level insert inside the box. I’ll be cutting the lid off today or tomorrow, and will have to give you that view a later day. Initially, I didn’t want to put a divider in the second level, but I found out that I needed something to grab onto to make lifting it out easy.
Jean is really easy going in regards to this project – she did tell me that her sister loves bunnies and butterflies which I am going to incorporate into the design. Then there’s the issue of color - I’d hate to make this purple if her sis hates the color. I am going to use a turquoise under-glaze and will also be using the white of the clay. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one develops – so I had better hop to it!
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this video. If you keep up with me on Facebook, you may have already seen this one. It makes me laugh, so just in case you need a giggle, here ya go:
Have a good day everyone,
~Cynthia
