My favorite and most successful piece thus far has been this artichoke-inspired bowl, made using a variety of skills picked up over the past few months at Higher Fire. After throwing and trimming a slightly thicker bowl than usual, I marked the base with ten dots, distributed evenly around the foot as guides. Then I sketched out the outlines of each petal and carved each one using the tools I made.
Here it is after bisque firing. You can see that each petal has a bit of a ledge above it. This gives the glaze a place to pool a bit and highlight the edges of the petals.
I decided to glaze it with celadon on the outside because in addition to being green, it is translucent enough to show carving details well while being stable enough to give a smooth, glassy finish.
For the inside, I used white and Matt’s Flambe again. It offered both the purples and maroons I was looking for in one glaze but as always, is a bit of a gamble. I think it turned out pretty well and I even got the pretty blue cells in the center pool.
