Sunday Studio Visit – custom orders and bits and pieces

Hope everyone’s New Year has been great  I am still trying to get back into routine, so a Sunday Studio Visit is a good place to start!

Today in the studio I am making two custom orders, plus a few beads for jewellery making, just for fun!

The custom orders are for an Etsy customer and for my hubby!

The Etsy customer requested that I make a pair of earrings based on a set that his wife loved, but which broke. Of course, I advised him that while I could duplicate the design and colours it would vary as the item is handmade and my interpretation of the original makers artwork may therefore differ – he was happy, so this is the resulting work in progress. The earrings have been made and underglazed while green, so once bisque fired they will need a clear glaze and jewellery findings attached. I am pretty happy with the results.

Whenever I have a custom order I always make multiples – pottery can be so unpredictable – so to make it less labour intensive to hand carve each piece I made a stamp which I used to duplicate the design on each bead. The bead was mapped out by hand and then carved into slightly hard leather hard clay. I used the stamp successfully while about 90% dry, but will bisque fore for future projects. Leaving it green will mean it absorbs water and if you are stamping a large quantity of pieces the stamp detail will deteriorate.

The other custom order was delivered by hubby who does 90% of the cooking. So, if he requests tapas spreading knives who am I to question? Of course having him make kitchenware requests is also a great way to experiment with different shapes, glazes and firing techniques.

Well, that’s a wrap for today – see you during the week 🙂