Nestle

My little hand carved and painted porcelain girl 'Nestle' found a new home on the very first night of her exhibition. Although it's always a little bittersweet parting with something you've laboured so long and hard over, the feeling is far surpassed by the joy of seeing someone fall in love with a piece and want to take it home. This was my first attempt at working with porcelain, and it was, of course, a lot more tricky and time consuming than I had anticipated. After I had sculpted the figure, she was bisque fired and ready to be painted. I used a very fine brush to painstakingly paint on her hair, which I then proceeded to sand right off again, re-paint, sand off etc. and annoyingly continued to do this about 3 or 4 times before I finally achieved a result I was happy with. Thankfully this process was made a little less agonizing by the wonderful ladies working in the ceramic department, who let the wine flow at all hours of the day and supply endless amounts of hilarity and good advice. The final painted figure was dipped in a clear glaze before going back into the kiln for a last firing. I just love the finish of the glossy glaze and how it brings the colours to life, and I cant wait to get my hands on some more porcelain :)