These were porcelain cups that originally had handles except that they dried too fast and the handles got cracks, so I removed them and made them into tea bowls instead.  I painted a thin black stain on it called “Seth’s Black Ink” after a ceramicist who uses this technique.  After the stain dried, I scratched it away using scratchboard tools.  It’s a horrible process, because I have a visceral aversion to the dryness and the dust and that atrocious scratching sound, but I love the way it looks.

That is, I would have loved the way it looked, had it turned out the way I wanted.  If you fire it to cone 5, the black is jet black and the white is white, and it’s fantastic.  But porcelain isn’t functional at cone 5 like it is at cone 10, so I fired it higher.

I certainly like the stronger background gradient with the new setup, but I’m going to have to fix that light issue with my next photo shoot.  I’m thinking a spotlight suspended from two speaker stands, instead of a spotlight on either side.

I made this because I used to have a collection of too-tiny flower pots and teapots whose lids had fused to them that I put on top of the garden wall to look at.  Unfortunately, the wind blew them over, and now most of them are broken.  This was made to sit on top of a wall, and I intend to epoxy it up there.  I wanted to make two crows, as I love them, but this one turned out more like a falcoln so I finished it that way.  If the glaze had turned out more clear and less milky, you’d be able to see the stain stripes and details better.

My kids (one in particular) decided she wanted a phoenix for her room, because her friend had drawn her a picture once and it looked very pretty.  I didn’t know how to make a bird look like it was rising from the ashes, so instead I painted the one from one of my favorite folktales, holding the tsar’s cherry in its mouth.

Birds can come in many different sizes and shapes, and originally my daughter wanted a peacock to be the basis of this one. I painted it, but I didn’t have any very good pictures to use as a reference.  My first practice painting came out poorly.  After I’d done two more (using a raven as a reference) I was much happier with it.

To make the stars in the background, I splattered the white canvas with liquid friskit, using a toothbrush and a paperclip.  That is, I dipped the toothbrush in the friskit and splattered the page by drawing the paperclip down the bristles.  Then I let it dry and erased it from where the bird was to go.

I realized after I’d already sprayed the fixative on it that I forgot to paint the legs, but I think it looks fine without them.