Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Up, down, around, and back again.

I've been down with another bad cold. Seriously, do you believe me now when I say I'm usually sick from October until March? ...and I'm almost fanatical about washing my hands.

It has been raining so hard... like monsoon rain, all week. Good for the gardens, bad for the pets who want to go outside... and as soon as you open the door, they change their minds and you have to forcibly kick them out to go to the bathroom.

Yes, though I've been sick, I'm starting preparation on a new little short-term project. Two of my friends are expecting babies soon... one at the end of October, one mid-November, and I wanted to paint a small gift for each of them.

Right now I'm about to hop into my car, drive 45 minutes to the painting-buddy of my deceased grandmother's house (who I've painting with before)... and I'm going to spend the day working on this little project.

Expect pictures later... I might head over again on Thursday or Friday, if that works with her schedule...

Remember: with porcelain painting, you have to fire it a number of times, which takes several hours (including the time it takes for the piece to cool off enough that you can even open the kiln, much less touch it without oven mitts).

For these pieces, I'm expecting 4-5 fires. Today, all I'm doing is putting on the first coat of lustre. Then I'll have to mask off the design, put another lustre layer on, fire a second time... and then I actually have to paint the darn things... which means about 2+ fires before they're done.

In other words... I won't get far, even though it's very time consuming.

4 comments:

  1. gah, I hate being sick! Hope feel better soon! Have fun working on your gifts, and I hope your pets get some real outside time as well.

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    1. Thanks :)

      ...though I'm disappointed I didn't get as far as I wanted today :(

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  2. we're supposed to get the rain tomorrow. And your friends will appreciate those gifts!

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    1. Haha, they better... I'm guestimating about 50+ hours, easy, per piece before they're done.

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