I'm very happy today because I finally finished my latest piece! Yay!! It took almost a year and a half for me to complete it. Before painting on the sake cup, I practiced the flowers a lot. Even though, I completed it, I’m still not completely satisfied. So, I definitely will paint the same design again. All my painting friends, including my teacher, think I'm super strict and a perfectionist, but I truly believe that practice makes perfect!
When I show the same design next time, I really hope I'll improve and show a better piece here.
As usual, I took its step-by-step pictures, I'd love to share them with you.
When I paint both sides, I always start with the front. I first drew fine lines and fired the piece at 780 ℃ (1,436 °F).
Then, I added colors on the drawing and fired it again at the same temperature.
Next, I drew lines on the underside and fired it again once more.
After that, I added some white enamel on the white flowers on the front side and added more colors on the underside. Then, I fired it again at the same temperature. The piece was starting to look prettier, and I was getting more excited! However, I still need more to do!!
I needed to paint the foot part of the cup. I struggled painting on such a tiny area, and I needed more practice.
After adding 100% pure gold here and there, I fired it at 630 °C (1,166 °F), which was the final fire.
The complete piece on my hand.
In total, I fired this piece five times. I like painting small pieces because it's easy for practicing over and over again. When I showed this piece to my friend from Texas, he said, "Wow! It looked totally perfect to me." When I told him that I would paint this same design again at least two more times to make perfect, he shared a story: " If we want to master something, we need 10,000 hours. However, even if we practice 10,000 hours, if we won't learn anything, we won't achieve our goals. We all need to learn from our failures because failure is the mother of the success." I totally agree!
To try to make myself a much better artist, I'll keep making efforts!
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I don't drink alcohol but I would love to drink sake out of this cup! It's so pretty!!
Lovely! Many thanks.
It looks great, Yumi! Will you sell it later? I wish you were close I would buy one from you! :)
Simply beautiful!
@schmamie Thank you for correcting and commenting. Your comment made me feel so happy!
@T-Newfields Thank you as always for correcting, Tim-san (@T-Newfields). Thank you for taking a look at my piece!!
Thank you so much, ZZ @Double-Zee. You are so sweet! I wish we would love much closer. We would have so much fun together!
Thank you so much for correcting my posts, @SEQ77! I always appreciate you a lot!!
Stunning!
@Fahrradfrau Thank you so much for the compliment!
It's beautiful! I can't imagine what the next two will look like - this one already looks perfect to me (but I admit, I'm untrained in the ways of pottery painting!)
@Shauna Thank you so much for the compliment. I'm working on the second piece and will show it when I finish it.