Student Projects

So my china painting students are starting early on their Christmas ornaments. This is the second project. The first series of classes were a wild rose plate. Every china painter starts with the wild rose.

This time they wanted to do ornaments. The first step was for them to trace the design & do the line work with pen. The powdered china paint is mixed with oil made to an inky consistency and they use a crow quill pen to do outlines. Line work is then fired. You can see from the poinsettia below how it turns out. The next class they do the painting "between the lines" as shown in their cardinal ornaments.

Then after that, they will do one more painting (and firing) where the colors are deepened.

The little dog is my ornament. It is not pen work. I just sketched it on with a stabilo pencil. This is the first fire for it. There will be one or two more paintings and firing, depending on how deep I get the color the next time around...Merry Christmas a little early! LOL