Catherine "Kater" Cheek is a writer and artist.
Catherine Cheek
Author's posts
Dec 22
Cobalt-Grid Porcelain bowl
When I was in Japan, I used to do cobalt underglaze on porcelain more than anything else. It was a style born out of the fact that I can’t read glaze colors in Japanese. There are a lot of traditional designs and motifs, usually used on fabric, which lend themselves well to the concave surface …
Dec 17
Mermaid Mask Book
 Fellow artist Jane Cheek gave me some fabric dyes, and I decided to try them out on a book cover. I started out with a calico that had spiral patterns on it. After all, using just plain fabric wouldn’t be much of a change over using paper. Some of the fabric dyes stain just …
Dec 13
Cobalt-Fish Scale Porcelain Bowl
This is my favorite of the traditional Japanese designs I use on pottery. Because of the way that the design has to change in order to fit inside the bowl, it never turns out the same way twice. I love hex-based designs as well, but when you do hexagonal designs on a curved surface, it …
Dec 11
Gloom Cookies
I saw these on a comic, and thought that they were just about the funniest things I’d seen, so I had to make some for my friend Jessica, who has a black sense of humor (like me!) As for the technique, they are “icebox cookies” from the Joy of Cooking cookbook, with Pillsbury vanilla frosting …
Dec 07
Un-Red bowl
This bowl had the same problem as the other one. It turned a strange color on the inside, which must have meant that I put a second glaze coat on it, but I don’t remember doing so. At least you can see the stamps along the rim.