Work in progress

I’m really busy at the moment preparing for Christmas craft fairs but i do have some WIP’s that I’d like to finish

This is a painting of an eagle owl, this piece is a little bit experimental as I used sugar syrup to paint the detail, this is not the typical method for painting overglaze. Normally a drying medium like fat oil would be used to grind the paint. Next I’ll add some washes of paint mixed with an open, or non drying medium, this allows you to blend  the colours more easily. The painting will be built up over several fires.

I have a selection of  trimmed brushes, they are more ragged which works really well for painting fur and feathers

Surprise when I opened the kiln…….

I’ve been working with recycled glass, I love the metamorphosis that takes place in the kiln. I got a really unexpected surprise yesterday when I opened the kiln. The glass had an iridescence which was not planned, why not take a look at the working process

PPIO

I’m a member of Porcelain Painters International Online or PPIO as it’s known.

PPIO is a place where porcelain artists can chat and share ideas

Here is a gallery of members paintings

Gallery 2

Summer craft fairs

Hi all

I’m really busy preparing for summer craft events

Please stop by and say hello if you are at Blenheim Palace on the 23rd, 24th or 25th August. or Brinkworth Country Show on the 31st August. Let’s hope the sun shines!!!

First self portrait

This is my first self portrait, I painted it this morning using overglaze paints, now it’s ready to be fired. I may add more later or maybe not.

This is the finished  portrait, as you can see I tweaked it further before firing, once fired the paint is permanent as it binds with the glaze.
Some of the paint in the heavy areas burned out, I expected this to happen, I added some more paint in places and fired again.

I was trying to paint tone using colour so here it is in B&W

Some people are put off by the colour,  people felt that way about the French  Impressionist paintings, they thought the flesh looked like corpses.
Which do you prefer? The B&W one looks more familiar to me for some reason

Siena and San Gimignano

More pictures from my holiday

Italy

I’ve just returned form an inspirational tour of Italy, I’m sure many paintings will follow.

If you want to see some of my photos taken in Venice click below

Some photo’s of Florence

Technique used for ‘Wiltshire trees’

I’ve put together a video showing the technique used for this painting.

Watercolour or not?

I’ve been devoting a great deal of time to developing a method for overglaze painting ( or china painting as it’s often called) that is more akin to watercolours than to traditional china painting methods. I mix my overglaze paints with sugar and water in the wells of my palette, and then use water to paint with as you would with watercolours. As I’m working on a ceramic tile you cannot wet it first like paper, my way around this is to spritz on water allowing the colours to mingle and run.

Wiltshire trees

This painting is on a ceramic tile, it measures 20×30 cm

This is another painting using the same ‘watercolour’ technique for a china painting

Flickr

I’m beginning to find my way around. I’ve added flickr so I can show you what I do all day, now i need to turn up the temperature on my kiln