{Ambition}

I debating on posting this because I'm not much of a process person, I'm all about the finished product. I'm learning the process can actually be more important than the finished product. So here it goes, I'm going to give you a glimpse into the imperfectness of the process.

We bought a kiln.

An ambitious purchase, a hopeful purchase, we bought it in hopes of opening an Etsy shop for me to do something I love and make a little extra money. As most of you know I have a bachelors degree in art education, and for the 4 years I was in college I had to take pretty much every art class known to man! Some of my favorite classes were printmaking, ceramics and oil painting; what I’m doing now is putting them all together! I am print making on ceramics. My training is minimal in all of these different fields of art, at this point I’m still experimenting! Here are some pictures from my first round of glazing…


The bottles you see next to the plates are under glaze, underglaze fires so much brighter then it looks when you paint (or print) it on the plate! All of the underglaze and plates came with our kiln, we got a really great deal from some freinds of ours when they were moving. At this point it's a gamble to know what these colors will look like after they are fired.

  I used premade screen prints for the crab and background design. I repeated it on four plates. After firing, I realized I should have used different colors on all the plates so I can get an idea what the different colors will look like after they are fired.

 If only I could make ceramics that look like my 'Anthropology" mug!

I thought it would fun to monogram using block printing. I like how this plate turned out I just wish I would have used a few more coats of the light blue so it would have turned out a little darker.

The bright green, is the glaze it’s what makes the plates shiny when fired. It fires completely clear and shiny, it’s tinted green so you can make sure you have covered the plate completely. While I was covering all of my newly painted plates with this crazy color Mikie was looking over my shoulder saying, 'i hope you know what you're doing'. I didn't let him know, but at the time I was thinking ‘I hope I know what I’m doing’. I'm happy to say that they came out of the kiln green free, and very shiny!

 I'm hoping one day to have a company name to brand all of my cermaics, but right now my initials will do!

 This crab plate turned out to be my favorite!

I already fired all of these plates, and because it was my first time they did not turn out as well as I would have liked them to. I'm sure with a little bit of practice I will get better! I will be sure to post some 'after pictures'!