This is my first time participating in an Art Elements Blog Hop. I was intrigued by the theme of foliage since that has been my theme for most of the years I have been making ceramic beads. I usually make a mold from plants and use it as the basis for pendants, toggle clasps and cabochons. I always hand paint on the colored glazes and almost never use underglazes. The photo above is a sample of pendants in my usual way of making.
For some time I have been thinking about other ways of making leaves and flowers. I have a collection of dried leaves that have fallen off a rubber plant I have in the house. I love their graceful flow and lyrical lines and form.
I decided I wanted to hand build my leaves and flowers. These leaves (pictured above) and some Victorian botanical drawings were my inspiration. I limited my tools to using an orange wood cuticle stick for makings the markings on the leaves. My clay body was a white stoneware clay which I fire to cone 5 (a bit above 2100 degrees F.) I began small but as time went on my leaves got bigger and bigger.
Hand built ceramic leaves still wet.
A larger hand built leaf
Hand built ceramic leaves still wet.
Bisque ware leaf fired one time
Some hand built flowers in the foreground fired once
When it came to glazing what I made I was a bit stymied at first. I decided to try some underglazes which I don't usually like because they are so stiff. But I wanted all those markings to show up through the other glazes I used. So I tried out a black and a blue. I was not unhappy with the result.
A hand built flower surrounded by wild cone flower textured beads. The black underglaze came through nicely I think.
a large hollow bead surrounded by 2 cabochons Wild Grass texture Again I used the black underglaze -2 coats- and then wiped it off and added colored glazes to the wiped off areas.
And another view of the leaves.
What am I going to do with all of these creations? I plan to use them in some of my free form peyote stitch jewelry. And some I have placed in my Etsy shop.This has been a great experience for me to be in this blog hop.
Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you will visit all the other participants in this blog hop listed below.
