The Lamps Are Glazed

I began these lamps some time ago. I knew we needed lamps for our bedroom (we have one dented IKEA thing right now), so I figured I should make some. I knew I wanted to make slab-built pieces with an uneven number of sides (there are five, which you can't see because of my bad iPhone photo). So, I went to Brickhouse and made a model from cardboard -- actually, a Priority Mail box. It was a little too short at first, so I just cut it longer and then wrote on the cardboard how long that was. It was all a little off-the-cuff, so I was nervous. I sprayed them with porcelain slip to make them white.

Well, my teacher for hand-built work encouraged me to hand paint them, so I went home and came up with some floral ideas. I went back the next day and carved out each design with a pencil (really, a pencil), which will look darker since you will see some clay color where the lines are. Then, I hand painted the colors on with underglaze. Then, because I got a crazy idea (after painting the flowers) that a little blue behind would make a good sky background, I waxed over the flowers and sprayed a light-blue underglaze lightly all over the lamps.

So, today, they came out of the bisque kiln. In order to attempt to get the affect I want, I hand painted clear glaze on the flowers and then waxed them again, so that I could spray another mixture of clear and faux celadon glaze over the whole thing in the hopes that it will have an even more amazing "sky" look. They are waiting to go into the glaze kiln now.

Note: the one in the front has no glaze on the flowers yet, the one in the back has hand-painted clear glaze blocking the colors.