Work in progress

Making porcelain labels for Tokketok is always sweet! Fun times in my studio.

Happy weekend everyone!

Experiment

Remember a while back I did a poll to hear if you would prefer glazed or unglazed pieces for jewellerey? It's hard to form an opinion solely based on a picture and opinions were divided into two as half of you preferred glazed jewellery and half of you would choose unglazed jewellery.
The pictures showed back then were with small samples that our screenprinter sent us and it didn't really represent any of what was to come.

As you know we chose to work with unglazed material but the other day I got curious about how it would look on glazed ware so I made a sample.The above brooche back is the unglazed one and the one below is glazed.
It is quite different isn't it?

Launch North Story

At last it's launch day!
Over the next few days, we'll be adding new designs to our shops. We'll be listing different items in our shops so you can check to see what's available in Anna's shop and in my shop.

Forest bear - sage

Capillary ring

A leaf and a seedling

Sage sweetpea

These are some of the designs we have available over the next few days. There are pendants coming too in a later phase so you still have something to look forward too.
We're excited and happy to finally be able to share what we've been working on the past months and hope you'll enjoy!

North Story - the process

Do you find it hard to imagine what work has gone into a finished product sometimes?
I do, especially if it concerns a technique I don't know anything about.

That's why I want to show you the process of how the brooches of the North Story are made.

It's a lengthy process that involves lots of sanding, 3 different firings and much patience along the way. But believe me, the result is all worth it...

Press a piece of clay into a mould.

Smooth out the back.

Lift it out of the mould gently.

Smooth the edges with a bit of water.

Let it dry in between plaster plaques.

After they are dry, sand the roughness away and fire it a first time bisque temperature.

After firing, sand again and do a porcelain firing.
And sand again after the porcelain firing.
Jip, that's 3 times sanding...

Meanwhile cut out the screenprinted images.

Put the decal in warm water.

Apply it to the porcelain by gently tearing away the paper underneath the screenprinted image.
Decals are normally used on glazed ware.
We're using unglazed material and this is trickier as the decal is more likely to let loose on unglazed ware.

Rub over it with a clay rib to get the airholes and water out.

Gently rub it with a clean cloth and then fire it at decal temperatures.

I apologize for the gloominess of the pictures - I blame it on the weather conditions! :)

And for the final products, keep an eye on our shops (LilaRubyKing & ArtMind), we'll be listing our new line later this week... :)

Hand leaves

Another glimpse from the North Story...
Not much longer now before the new line will be in our shops!
Happy day everyone!

Cutting

Cutting 'till my thumb hurts... Lots and lots and lots of teeny tiny bits.
It's for the collaboration with Anna (LilaRubyKing).
We're in the final stage of the process.
After I'm done, I'm sending it all to Anna who will finish it off and photograph all the work 'cause she has mad photographing skills.
We hope to launch sometime in September. That's only a few more weeks - can you wait?

Anna's worktable

Today, Anna from LilaRubyKing is treating us with some work in progress. I don't know anything about working with silver and metalsmithing is such a mystery to me.
It seems all so complicated: sawing, soldering, dapping, doming, using a mandral,... All these tools are unneccesary in ceramics as we can form the clay anyway we like - easy!
For some reason, metal and glass are materials I'm not attracted too to work with since they seem so much more difficult to give shape. I would be really frustrated trying to manipulate a material that is so laborious & stubborn. So glad that Anna is working her magic with the metal.
The little bear head is porcelain which I slipcasted from a handmade mould.
The result of the work above can be found in her shop... :)

Preparing

Yesterday, I prepped things to take to the Fashion museum at the end of this week. All of these things will be sold in the museum shop and the happy girls are a big time favorite there so I made loads of 'em.
Thank you for voting on the tags. I love the lime a lot but since these will be put up for sale, I thought a more neutral one would fit better so I went with what most people said: hemp twine.
And then I had to come up with packaging for the buttons. I glazed 'em all transparant and thought that a kraftpaper packaging would look nice.
I cut out A4 sized kraftpaper and printed a tekst on them & drew a frame around it. The tekst says 'LACE' (porcelain) as the buttons do look a bit like lace but they are pretty porcelain...And now I'll have to glaze a whole batch of colorful buttons so that I can fire the kiln & deliver the goodies soon.

Crispy light

Hilde from Blue Celeste asked me to make something for her but when she told me what it was I told her to do it herself as it's a very time consuming job.
Haha, I'm cruel that way.
So I showed her how to do it and the other day, the work was delivered in my studio. She did an amazing job - the work is so fine, so delicate and so perfect. I couldn't have done it any better.
It's super super thin paper porcelain & it will be crispy white and pretty.
She's definately up to something with these and I can't wait to see the end result. I doubt she'll be producing these on a frequent basis though. It will be one special & very unique piece of art.
While at it, I decided to drench a few layers of round tissue papers into casting porcelain to see the difference in thinness and translucency. A few years ago, I have done this before in this work but I forgot about it when she asked me about making the rounds. They will for sure be more fragile I'm afraid.Did you know that Hilde has an Etsy shop too? She works magic with leather and Japanese paper.

Wishing you all a crispy light weekend!
x
Mitsy