Bird with raised paste border

At last I have finished the plate I began at the Nerang, Australia school in class with Louise Hopping as tutor.

I needed a magnifying glass sitting on my chest to see clearly to cover the tiny dots with a fine line of burnishing gold. Before the gold work was dry I applied gold powder over it, which gave the paste a lovely rich gold look.

But remind me not to use such small dots in future!

Watch this space!

The last 4 or 5 weeks have gone by so very fast! I have just come back from Australia where I attended an exhibition of Australasian Porcelain Art Teachers' work. The work was stunning and I saw so many things that I want to paint adapting to my own style.

Following the exhibition I attended a school, and the class I took with Australian Louise Hopping was great. We painted a small fluffy bird in the middle of the plate and then surrounding it with raised paste (our own designs) and also many hundreds of dots around the edge of the plate.
I am no where near finished the plate; it needs at least another 2 fires. As soon as it is finished I will post it on my blog for you to see.

I am also working on a couple of smaller things, and will post those too.

So watch this space! And I am sorry for the length of time with no new postings.

8" Bone China Plate

This 8" bone china plate was a gift to me from Christine Bennett, U.K. Bone is a lovely surface to paint on . . . .and of course I couldn't resist painting roses on it!
I have marked on the back of the plate that it has been supplied by Christine. It is always nice to acknowledge people, and it is always nice to have a little history on the back of a piece. Perhaps people will be interested to read things like this in decades to come.
I hope so!

8" Slim Rose Vase

Another view of the vase below!

8" Slim Rose Vase

I love the shape and feel of this piece of porcelain! The last vase of roses I did on this shape was sold at the New Plymouth Exhibition in April 2011.
My last vase of this shape called for roses again, so here it is.

There is a decal of lace at the top of the roses which has been covered with Rembrandt lustre, and there is a band of burnishing gold at the top of the vase and also inside th neck of the vase, as well as the base. There are small paste dots on the inside and the base of the vase which you may be able to see if you enlarge the pic by clicking on it.

Looking Through Trees!

I purchased this plain white plate about 20 years ago in Singapore - from C.K. Tang's department store. They were such nice plates that I purchased 12 of them and carried them carefully all the way back to New Zealand. Jim (my husband of 53 years) thought I was crazy!
I found this last plate in my cupboard the other day, and what nicer way to paint it than using lustre, dark brown paint sponged on, and various techniques around the 8 sides. I love it, and I hope you enjoy looking it!

Lustre and Trees!

Here is something quite different that all our club members painted as a project.
I swirled on the lustre and fired it, then sponged on black paint mixed with water based medium and fired again. 'twas difficult to photograph the plate and vase together . . . . the vase looks as though it is on a lean, but it isn't!
Maybe I should have photographed the vase by itself. Oh well, too late now.