Here are some of the processes that the two name plaques have been through, and the finished item.
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| At this stage the lettering has been drawn onto the clay and the plaque is left to go to leather hard stage ready to work on again. |
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| As above but this plaque I scratched a drawing of the hens and the pigs and left to go to leather hard stage. |
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| At this stage the clay is leather hard which means it is still soft enough to work on but not wet as the initial stage and not dry enough to not do anything with. I have dug out all the lettering with a clay tool and smoothed with a soft brush ready to paint glaze into the letters. After this I have to weight down all the corners to allow the work to dry really flat. This takes weeks sometimes. I am going to single fire these pieces (which means fire once with the glaze painted straight onto dry unfired clay) |
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| Here I am putting the shelves in my kiln together to load up my work and do a firing. |
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| These are the final fired plaques before I delivered them to Pairpoint's Farm. |
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| The lady who bought them really liked them. So phew!! Until another commission comes along. |
Haha - I know exactly what you mean. When you make something as you want and put it up for sale and someone buys it, you know they liked what they saw which was why they bought it. But when you do commissions for people and offer a few designs, then make it, you wonder if they really really like it or not. I too get most of my work now on commissions, but there is so much more pressure on yourself. I guess if people keep coming back, you know for sure that they like your designs and quality, but the pressure is always there isn't it? PS love those two designs myself - brilliant work.
ReplyDeleteWonderful designs, I didnt realise you did these :) Pairpoints Farm is very good (they both are), very rustic and creative xx
ReplyDeleteChrissy, I know it's the way to go. People do want something unique it's just as you say if someone buys instinctively from your shop there is no pressure as soon as the pressure is on it feels more stressful.
ReplyDeleteRosa lily, I don't usually do these, (unless I am asked) I don't advertise it as I'm not sure people realize how long they take to dry flat. But I have done a few over the years mainly to local people so I don't have the headache of sending them and worrying about breakages too.
Glad you like them
Xx