Picked up fired flowerpot at Claytopia. I am pleased with the results.

Yesterday, I met heathertea and one of her friends in Northampton to do some pottery painting. I didn't have anything specific in mind, but was thinking that I would like to make a Christmas present for my dad and stepmother. I had considered doing a vase for them before, but I wasn't really happy with the shapes of any of the vases, and didn't know what to do with it, anyway. Looking through their basket of stencils, I found a cool celtic knot dog stencil, and went searching for something big enough to use it on. I ended up choosing a planter, and painting it in earth tones, a base coat of brown, with a sponged on layer of red to give it some depth, and the design done in two shades of brown, dark in the center of the design and fading to a lighter color on both sides. HT did a plate in yellow, with orange flowers, as a present for her parents, and her friend did a cup and saucer, blue with witch design on the saucer and a day/night theme on the cup. They all looked pretty cool, and I can't wait to see what the finished products look like. I can go pick up my project on Thursday.

So this weekend, my roommate and I went to Claytopia to paint some pottery...and I took pictures.
We had already planned out our projects for the day, and brought along some pictures to use as guides. So, we picked out the plates we wanted to paint, and then had to decide what colors we wanted to use:



Then we got to work painting the background color. And then painting it again. And then painting it again. (For those of you who have not attempted this sort of craft before, in order to have a nice even finish that isn't streaky, you have to use three coats of paint)



With the background done, my roommate began drawing her design on her plate. I traced my pattern and started painting.



Approximately 6 hours after we started, we had completed our painting projects and had this to show for our work:



Finally, today we were able to pick up our finished projects, which had been fired over the weekend, so now they look like this: