In the studio - more test pieces

This week in the studio I experimented with a majolica glaze.

Hard at work in the studio

I had decided to try this glaze because of the similarities of creating blue on white imagery with low fire earthenware compared with the high fire porcelain that I work with in Australia. I just love blue and white ceramics.

some spoons with majolica before the glaze firing

 So I very carefully painted a number of scenes I had sketched from the Quaker House in Dartmouth.

And the results were a little unexpected - as you can see in the before and after images below.

kitchen chair before glaze firing

kitchen chair after glaze firing 

kitchen cupboard pre-fire

kitchen cupboard after glaze firing 

Kitchen fireplace pre-fire

Kitchen fireplace after glaze firing 

Kitchen scene pre-fire

Kitchen scene after glaze firing 

So I think what caused the cracking of the ceramics was the thickness of the glaze - next time I will try it a little thinner. This may also have been the cause for why the images ran. 

Although the results were not what I was hoping for, I really like the watery quality of the images and I will continue to experiment with positioning the spoons at different angles in the kiln to accentuate this. However I would also like to achieve some blue on white scenes which do not have the marbled/watery effect. I have been told that there is another majolica glaze that I should also try - I will also test that one out too.

I have had a little more success etching silver spoons.

Silver spoon before etching 

Silver spoon after etching 

I am really excited by the concept of etching silver cutlery and I will continue to explore creating imagery in this way. There is an excellent tutorial online that demonstrates the steps of how to do this.

Creating wood block 

I have also started working with carving imagery onto woodblocks and printing the imagery using the Japanese technique of using water colours or gauche to print the image. This is really exciting as I learnt this method whilst I was living in London, and haven't had the time since to explore this method of printing.

This week all 10 artists got together to present their progress to date. It is really interesting to see how everyone is working and the beautiful things that are being created. We are starting to count down to the exhibition.... theres only 24 days to go!