I shared a photo of porcelain lilies before they were fired in my kiln.
Here are some ‘after’ pics.
Water lilies made of colored porcelain, ‘floating’ in a ceramic rock of four clay bodies including porcelain and three stonewares of different shades of brown.
Calla lilies of colored porcelain in a ceramic rock ‘grotto’, also of four clays.
Besides growing flowers, I am also a clay artist and potter.
Today, I made calla lilies of colored porcelain clay.
The flowers are small, about an inch long (not including stem).
This is a new item for me, I am not sure how the colors will look after being fired in my wood-fired kiln. I’ll show you in a month, after the firing.
These snapshots show the progressive change of color of this outstanding landscape plant. (I see the photos are posted in reverse order.) While many sedums are groundcovers, Autumn Joy easily grows to 18 inches tall. The above pictures cover the gradual darkening of this plant’s flowers. They were taken over the course of a month, and the flowers will keep on getting darker for another few weeks.
I recently saw a line of about 20 barrels of these flowers decorating the entry to Maryhill Winery in Washington State on the Columbia Gorge. They were still in the early stage of color development, and would look handsome for another month or so.
The bud in the Turtle Vase is still in the early stages of color change, as the stem was nipped by deer, earlier in its development. (If you look close, you can see the darkening of the stem cut near the top flower.) My plant is next to a fence, and the natives keep it pruned.
This porcelain vase is made by me in my ‘other life’. A turtle is carved into the opening, and the piece was fired in my wood and gas fueled kiln. The orange-peel texture seen on the vase shoulders is from soda introduced into the kiln near the end of the firing.
What I don’t know about photography could fill volumes. My trying to take a picture of the teeny-tiny flowers of baby’s breath is a prime example. Perhaps a small tripod and learning how to leave the lens open long enough would help get many more of the flowers in focus.
These flowers are often used as fillers in a bouquet, but my vase is holding only baby’s breath. It is a 3-inch high mini-vase, made of porcelain. The upper part of the vase has a transparent blue glaze, and the lower part of it shows a light brown toasty color from the wood fueling my kiln.
These are really quite stunning flowers, and as an added bonus they keep beautifully if dried. Camaroon is a cousin of the artichoke that is grown for its flowers rather than the edible thistle bud. The camaroon can get quite tall, easily 5 or 6 feet high.
I like to let some artichoke buds mature and flower, rather than harvest them all earlier in the growth stage, for eating. Since my artichoke vegies do not grow especially large, I get tired of the ‘labor-intensive’ process to eat the small bites of the tender heart.
Pictured is an artichoke flower in a porcelain Turtle Vase, made by yours truly.
susansflowers 