I have had so much fun with the Christmas ornaments, from finding all the fun cookie cutter shapes to adding the color and the glitter at the end! All the Jean Elton artists have been involved in the painting, so we have a variety of personalities showing through in all the ornaments. Some are very precise and well measured, some are whimsical, and some are very modern.In the pictures below you will see the final steps of making the ornaments as well as the finished product. ( Just to warn you, you will be tempted to eat some decorated sugar cookies after viewing!) You will see the painting of each individual ornament, the glaze firing, the spraying (which adds a bit of a sheen), and finally adding just a touch of glitter.Thank you for keeping up with us here at Jean Elton! Please check back in a week or so for information on where the Christmas ornaments will be sold.
The ornaments were fired in the electric kiln, as seen above.
In a bisque firing (or the first firing), the pieces can be stacked on top of each other.
The electric kiln was stacked full of shelves like this with piles and piles of ornaments.
If ornaments aren't given enough time to dry before firing,they will break in the kiln, as seen here.
Here, Lois is unloading the kiln by removing the shelves.They are very heavy!
Finally, the bottom of the kiln and the last of the ornaments to unload.
The ornaments are stacked according to their shape and put into boxes.They are now ready to paint!
First, the clay is rolled into large slabs.
Kathy and Lois have decided on a large variety of shapes!For that, they use cookie cutters.
The cookie cutters are placed on the slab of clay.They try to fit in as many as possible.
Here, Lois and Kathy are using straws to poke holes in each ornament.
Each ornament is then removed from the cookie cutter and placed on a tray.
Next, they are all stamped with the Jean Elton logo.
The ornaments need to remain flat until they are completely dry.Believe it or not, this is only a small fraction that have been made!
My mother-in-law is a painter and we have some of her beautiful watercolor paintings around our house. She painted a lot of flowers, but most of her work was very abstract. Before I started hand-painting our dishes, I would look at her work and wonder if I could translate some of that beauty onto our pottery. In the beginning, I would try to draw a perfect flower, but soon I realized that perfection wasn't as interesting as different shapes and designs. Instead, I started drawing flowers, not worrying whether or not they were perfect, and then complement them with abstract shapes that I would later paint in all different colors. That is how the latest Jean Elton designs were born. I use water color glazes to achieve the bright and varied colors that I saw in my mother-in-law's paintings. And then I just draw and see where the shapes and colors take me.
