Back in the Painting Groove

I was having a bit of a painting slump. For a while I painted like a banshee, alcohol ink everywhere not doing and other mediums, I pushed everything aside even my first love china painting.  

Well I went to a friends house and got my mojo back so to speak. Finally using my new mini kiln that I bought in February at the china painting show/convention in Florida, I worked on some little pendants and ornaments.

The kiln worked great. It was much better than cranking up the big one for a few little things. This little kiln takes 50 minutes to fire and 3 hours to cool. The big one takes 3 hours to fire and all day or night to cool. I like that I can get  2 firings in a day if I ever get back to my usual painting rate.

Here is the first fire pen work of the little pendants. There were 2 more fires to go.

The bottom photo are the finished pendants and ornaments.

So glad I got them finished. I have 3 craft shows coming up that I need to work on. Maybe if you are local I'll see you at one of these.


1)  Chesterfield Community craft show on September 20th 12-4 (Mansion House Crossing Pool area in Chesterfiel,  Pasadena, MD)

2)  St. John Lutheran Church Craft Show (Maple Rd, Linthicum, MD) on the
Saturday, November 29th 9-2 pm.

3)  Glen Burnie High School Winter Craft Show (B&A Blvd, Glen Burnie MD) December 6th 9-2 pm.

What a couple of days!

Well what a couple of days. I went to VA Beach but before I left my kiln malfunctioned and didn't shut off. It fired so hot it burned through the fire brick. Something woke me up at 5 am. I went into the garage and everything was hot to the touch... It's a wonder my house didn't ignite. I threw open the garage door & manually shut off the kiln.  Later I went out to buy a new kiln. When I came home I thought I'd try to salvage some of the porcelain but most of it was fired so hot it stuck to the kiln & kiln furniture.

That is with 2 exceptions... .2 cross "rosary" boxes similiar to the one pictured which I had painted the Blessed Mother on!  All the other china paints were fired completely out of the other porcelain but these 2 pieces had the faint image of Mary on them.  I personally believe that she protected me & my house. My bedroom sits right over the garage.  She woke me I'm sure.  I store gasoline, paints, denatured alcohol  & other flammable chemicals in the garage and nothing ignited!

Well then in trying to save the china, I cut my hand...with only 3 hours before I left for Virginia Beach. It wouldn't stop bleeding so I went to the Urgent Care and they put 2 stitches in my left index finger.  I'm left handed! And then they gave me a tetanus shot. So for the weekend with my cousins I had a sore finger, sore arm and then from the reaction to the shot had flu like symptoms, a headache and couldn't stay awake!  We went to Mass Sunday before we left and I was getting sick in Mass & even started having a panic attack. My daughter drove home because I was so drowsy.  What a weekend!

Today I feel much better but it's so hard to type. It takes me forever. Now I have a new kiln and I'm $1500 in the hole. I have to do a hot fire to cure it and I'm a little bit nervous .  It is programmable so it will be safer than the old 25 year old kiln. But I'm still nervous.