Pop-a-Daisy

Today flowers popped out of the clay. I'm not sure where I am going with this motif. I honestly make it up as I go along. Flowers are great for exploring color. There is also something very simple and naive about the act of making flowers. In contrast to my life-size nude ceramic torsos there is really no comparison.

Because I am working on vases and boxes (less functional forms) I am allowed be more liberal about the size, scale and dimension of my decorative elements. They will not interfere with the function of the piece. Yet, my plan was to make simple bud vases, lots of them and quickly for the upcoming holiday sales. The form is an extruded oval about 7 inches tall. I made a template to efficiently cut out and join a base to the tube. Then I began layering on the porcelain slip in the areas I wanted to decorate.

At first, I just made thick white circles maybe two or three per vase. These would become flowers almost instantaneously with a swipe of red or yellow. Next, I add leaves to unify the grouping of buds. When one circle accidentally extended to the lip of the vase I added a set of clay leaves on the edge of the rim. I tried this on another vase bringing the clay out horizontally adding leaf lumps to the sides of the vase. Sometimes the wad of clay would take the form of a flower breaking the plane of the vase. After a dozen or more such varied revelations I created my favorite motif.

The daffodil has petals subtracted from the surface. The flower cup is added so as to expand the dimension of the motif. The stem and leaf are painted flat to the surface and deeply outlined to allow the dipping glaze to pool. Finally, a design worth repeating if only to then dip into a variety of different glaze colors...

Shortly after I ran out of vases to decorate, I eyed two oval shaped casseroles long forgotten under plastic. An assortment of roses and daisies soon sprung from the narrow curves to create lush handles. Their leaves to be drawn in wax on the once fired surface.