Now, to The Open Sea!
English

Now, to The Open Sea!

by

art

This entry is a sequel to this post.

After my teapot cracked, I went to my painting teacher's studio to buy another white porcelain piece. Fortunately, she had a similar round shaped vase, so I didn't need to change my original design at all.

First, I painted the top and bottom.

Then, using the same design, I drew lines with a fine brush and fired it.

Adding colors is always fun.

I put the color mixed gold and red on each rice shaped pattern.

I also added gold on each diamond shaped pattern.

To make the gold parts stand out even more, I experimented to put some blue in the background and fired it.

I liked it, so I layered more deep blue.

To make the blue part look interesting, using some plastic wrap, I made texture. It ended up looking some part are thinner than others.

To use enamel, I put tiny dots on each gold diamond shaped pattern. After firing, I added more gold to make a more interesting pattern.

For the wave motifs, I added enamel to make them look more denominational and drew some patterns with gold.

The bottom section of the vase is filled with chrysanthemums.

To complete this vase, I fired thirteen times in total: eight times at 780°C (1436°F) only for colors and five times at 630°C (1166°F) for gold and platinum details, and it took almost three months to finish.

The pictures below show my finished piece. I'm so happy for the result. When I first started painting on porcelain pieces, it was really hard for me to complete the pieces close to my images. Now, I'm getting much better and can finish the pieces much closer to them.

This piece has a story. A Portuguese black ship just started its voyage to Zipangu, which Portuguese crews believe rich in gold. They tried to make Japan one of their colonies, but that's a different story and I'll write about it some day.

When you take a look at my piece and feel their spirits of adventures, it would be great.

You can see my pseudonym name 天羽 (amou).

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