Tuesday 25 May 2010

Techniques, processes & stages involved in the making of my ceramics:

I work from my peaceful studio set in the old village of the East of England. My studio space is divided between the top floor where I begin my making process of slip-casing my cupcakes & teacups. They are case from the plaster models that I have made of the cupcakes base, lid & different size teacups.
I work with a fine French limoges powder porcelain which I turn into slip. I have personally developed & named my own unique porcelain colour range, so yellow is called Joy, blue is called Patient, green is called Naive, pale pink is called Shy & dark pink is called Blush. These colours have become my trade mark and from any new product collection which I have developed these colours are always used thus from each new range of ceramics that I have crated over the many years my five personally developed colours stay constant and run through each collection of work to bring about harmony.

On the ground floor of my studio are my two electric kilns. This is also where I do all of my glazing & packaging up of my final pieces ready to be sent to various galleries across the UK.

If I am making just 1 or 50 or more cupcakes & tea cups the process takes the same amount of time:

Day one, slip-cast the cupcake base, lid & teacups. Roll out coloured porcelain to make sweeties & biscuits, slip-cast fruit & attach to cupcake lids & teacups.

Day two, sponge & make perfect of the cupcakes & teacups from yesterday.

Day three, almost dried out ready for kiln firing.

Day four, bisque fire the cupcake bases, lids & tea cups to the temperature of 1000°c

Day five, unload the kiln & apply a clear glaze to the inside of the cupcake bases, dip outside of the lids and the whole of the teacups. Then remove any excess glaze from the sweeties, bottom of teacups & biscuit on teacup. Leave to dry out.

Day six, Load the kiln & glaze fire to 1250°c

Day seven, Unload the kiln. With the cupcake lids which are decorated with either a cherry or strawberry these then need to be glazed deep purple & red, and once again put back into the kiln & this time fired to 1000°c

Thursday 20 May 2010

RBSA Gallery - exhibition


24 May – 23 July
The Art of Dining
Explore the relationship between food and object. Including jewellery, ceramics and textiles, this exhibition will investigate the social importance of food and dining. It includes direct representations of food and tableware that is purely decorative. ‘The Art of Dining’ will be a sumptuous exhibition and an intriguing insight into the varied techniques and skills utilised by makers in their creative practices. Ceramic cupcakes by Julie Pettit will be on show alongside textiles from Lucy Pritchard and jewellery by Annie Banian.

www.rbsa.org.uk/about

Welcome to my very first Blog! ! !

I have set up my blog page so that I can share my ceramic events, from making techniques, new designs, up & coming art exhibitions, new gallery stockists of my ceramics, etc. . . . . . .