If you’ve read about my mother’s 50th birthday piece, you’ll know where the inspiration of the up-side-down bouquet came from. But this particular piece is substantially larger than all of the other pieces-plus a few new types of flowers.
Side note: Clay shrinks roughly 13% of its original size after the firing processes. So, imagine 13% more on that baby. It was a lot of work.
When I began this piece, I really just wanted to push to see how large I could make the design. So, I sat down and began throwing a 4 piece stack pot. Once it was dry enough, I trimmed up the pieces to stack perfectly and put them together. I sat back for a while visualizing all of the flowers and where they were positioned. Then I drew a light outline of where each stem would go. I make some half spheres for the hydrangea bases and some awkward banana-y shapes for the lilacs. Then placed those is their planned areas and began creating the stems.
After a couple of days painstakingly creating each petal and sticking them on one by one, I realized that this puppy was going to dry too much before I could finish making the petals! So, I had to call in some help. I taught them how to make the hydrangea petals, then I would stick those on one by one while I continued to make the lilac petals. Even with that little bit of time saving, it took 5 days to apply all of the flowers.
Once it was completed and ready to dry, I let it sit for two weeks to make sure there wasn’t moisture left. I learned my lesson from mom’s 50th birthday gift version 1.0. As I was admiring the finished work, it became apparent that with all of the fragile little flowers and the bulkiness of the piece it would be extremely difficult to lower into the kiln.
Fortunately I have a very tall stepdad and he has a very tall friend. The poor guy had nightmares about being tasked with getting the piece in and out of the kiln safely!
The first firing went well, but I noticed a hairline crack in the base which I tried to patch to prevent further cracking. I fired it a second time to set the material used for the mend. The crack got worse. I used another type of mend and fired again. It worked! So I put on the first layer of white glaze with a spray gun, fired it and the crack reappeared. Fortunately, by this point I stopped worrying about the crack. That’s a whole other story for next week!
I proceeded to add a little color to the petals with a smaller airbrush. My stepdad was very grateful this would be the last time he’d be pulling it out of the kiln.
This process took nearly 6 months to complete. But I did it! It still has its title of the largest and most detailed piece I’ve completed to date.
Projects like this are the reason I love being an artist. I continue to push my limits and I get energy from improving each time.
Looking at the piece right now, I grin and think, “I can make a bigger one.”