I finally finished painting a bowl for serving sweets and I'm glad that I can share the finished piece here. It took almost a year to complete, but I'm quite happy with the result. This painting style is called 呉州赤絵 (ごすあかえ、gosuakae) in Japanese and Swatow ware in English. It was my first time trying to paint this style and I absolutely loved it. The technique is more freedom and doesn’t require precision. So I quite enjoyed the rough painting style.

After painting the red part, I added some green, which is made of glass. It looks pale gray in the picture below. After firing, the color turns into transparent green. This is a distinctive feature of Japanese porcelain paints. Since I usually use Western paints, it was fun to experiment something different.

After finished the front part, I started working on the underside part. I designed the similar look.

Since the bowl itself is handmade, it doesn't look perfect. The imperfection matches this rough painting style very well.

Some pictures below show the finished piece. The most challenging part to paint this style was to keep the consistency of the red tone exact same, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

Although this kind of bowl is traditionally used to serve sweets during Japanese tea ceremonies, I’m planning to display it in the tokonoma (alcove). I'll buy a wooden stand for a flower vase (花台 はなだい hanadai) and place the bowl on it. Once I set up everything, I'll definitely show a photo here.

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