Plates

 So, I've been working on plates recently. I've made a few dinner plates, which I really enjoyed making, but for the most part I have been focusing on the dessert plate. Dessert plates see a little bit less use than your average plate, and I think for that reason I find it more acceptable for them to be ornate. It is also a smaller canvas than the dinner size plate, which increases the feeling that what is served on these plates is a bit more special. These first two pictures are 10 inch dinner plates, although their owners treat them more like smallish platters (which supports my dessert plates theory).

 I really had a lot of fun working on these flat wide surfaces, but it took a few different design plans for me to adjust my imagery to the flat nature of the form. With cups you have that roundness that lends itself to storytelling. As you turn the cup the images change allowing a narrative to unfold as one image turns into another. With plates it was a struggle to not just make the surface into a landscape. I tried to create the feeling  that something was happening just outside of the scene captured on the plates. Some of them were more successful than others...

  but over all it was an excellent way to re-train my brain so it didn't get stuck on one kind of surface. I feel like I have a few more months on plates, there are so many possibilities. I also stumbled across a few tutorials from Molly Hatch on her mishima process which I can't wait to try out. See her tutorial on her website here . Hope your holidays were awesome, and Happy New Year! Bianca







                                           More plates!

Updates: GLAM and Underglazing

 Thanks to everyone who made our GLAM booth a smashing success we couldn't have done it without you. For those of you who didn't come, prepare to be excommunicated from C&B... just kidding. Here's a picture of our set-up, comments welcome.

Also, an update on this little guy to the right. A few posts back I told you about how the bottom of this piece flaked off in the kiln. At first I attributed it to an air bubble that I didn't catch but after some reflection and talking to  a few more experienced friends at my studio I have come to the conclusion that the bottom was just not dry enough. Part of what confused me was that this piece felt dry when it was loaded, but my current working theory is that some how the underglaze coat on the bottom of the pot prevented proper drying or out-gassing or both. So just as a cautionary tale, if you use underglaze to color the bottom of your pots make triple sure that the bottom is dry. Or you could use underglaze on bisqued pieces. I just like how much more control i have over the line quality when using underglaze on greenware. Lucky for me this piece still holds water and looks great so i kept it. You can hardly tell that it was damaged at all.  Happy Holidays, Bianca