Travel Tips

I have just started pottery classes; tried my hands on hand building.
My first project was to make lamp. it is a very simple one; you take some wedged clay, and roll into little snakes and then stack them up. Then u smoothen them to make sure it will stick, shape to how you want it to be, then i pierced holes using drill bits, and then made flower patterns on them. My colouring was not too good, it was patchy but otherwise it is rather pretty for my first project.

This is my second work - it is still unfinished...in its 2nd stage only. I made huge slab of about 1 cm thick clay for a table top. It will be a display table, which I will later cover with a piece of glass over.

The pic is of 9 fish with water lilies and pod.

I drew the picture on the slab of clay, and waited for it to dry a bit, then carved out like a jigsaw puzzle. And have them baked then coloured with underglaze (for the flowers abnd fish only), baked at high temperature n then paint the glaze for the flowers and fish, The waves in the sea will be coloured blueish with glaze paints. The next step is to have them baked at lower temperature. Then i will join the pieces back to stick permanently on the table.

I am making a series of tiles...day and night of bird and flora and fauna scene.

This is the night scene - it has owl and palm leaves. The day scene is of colourful birds.

One tile is glazed - the others are waiting to be glazed

The Japanese love this cat, it is a good luck cat, so I decided to make this cat tile.

The cats are made of clay, and I have cut them out into pieces like jigsaw puzzle.I have made three cats, papa, mama and baby cat. Mama cat has a fish with her, and baby cat is holding a Japanese toy. Both mama and papa are carrying gold ingots which will later have characters (either Japanese or Mandarin) bearing good wishes.
The cats are also sitting atop lots of gold ingots!!!

When the clay sculpture are dried up, I will paint them with underglaze them, and then baked them, for next round of glazing. The entire clay sculpture will then be stucked on a wooden board, which the background will be covered with broken up Italian glass mosaics, and surrounded by clay tile Sakura flowers.

I have not decided where to display my cat once it is completed, but it will either be at the front of my new home, or of my office.

Now the cat has been painted with underglaze, and will have to wait several weeks to dry out the paint before ot can be bisqued. I have not completed yet...it will take couple more weeks. Now, I have just simply scatter some of the mosaic tiles I bought from my October 2004 trip to Frankfurt (yes - I got the tip from VT christine.j who answered my forum posting on where to buy craft stuff from FF - it is at Vowinckel - thanks christine)

and I DO LIKE the effect of the blue over the cat.

After bisque, I painted with underglaze, and then baked them, and then glazed them and final baked. Then I colour some gold on the nuggets, and then final bake for the gold paint.

The completed work is my first project on 2 types of medium, one is clay work and also glass mosaics. It is my first time using grout - which I initially grout with grey. The after effect was very disappointing becos it made my sky background looks like an overcast weather, i quickly coat it with ivory grout. I am looking for more improvement in my future art work.

My favourite niece Mae Shan drew some girls - identifying themselves - and I copied and transfered it into clay work. The clay tiles of the girls depicts my 4 nieces - just some wild imagination of them. These tiles need to be baked, and glazed, baked again, and then I will have them glued to a board, covered the background with glass mosaics. This will be their Xmas present.