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Writer's pictureKatherine Fortnum

A month in the life of a ceramicist #13


As you may know I am currently being mentored by The Princes Trust, I have been for a year now; they support me with a mentor for my business Katherine Fortnum Ceramics.


I am lucky enough to have been accepted to sell my handmade ceramics through their online store, so now you can purchase my pieces and your sale donates money to The Princes Trust charity.


You can visit my shop here!



 

This month I’ve spent time rethinking how you view my photos when browsing my online store and I decided to photo my sterling silver ceramic stud earrings differently to capture their beauty and detail in my shots.


It was a definite success as I’m delighted to saw my earrings have been flying out the shop!

Once colour in particular went down a storm, so much so that I’ve ran out of stock and need to make some more! These lovely really dark glossy black studs.


To browse my earrings click here!



 

Every now and again there’s days in the workshop where I’ve got to do all the jobs I’ve been putting off for a while, my biggest grievance is wedging clay. Every time something is made by me or by one of you my workshop attendees, during making you cut off scrap pieces of clay from your creations, the pile of dud bits left at the end I need to reclaim into workable clay to be reused.


Reclaiming clay requires wetting the clay, adding moisture back in turning it to slurry, drying it out and rewedging it into usable clay. I had put it off long enough and this month there was a lot to wedge!

Here's a video of what wedging is, sped up pretty fast.


 

I’ve been asked to create a few special pieces for a commission for a customer as a Birthday gift, I can’t reveal what it is just yet as it’s a secret but I’ll show you photos soon enough.


I’ve made a start in colour testing, for these pieces I’m adding colour with slips and I need to create a very specific shade of blue and yellow so I’ve been experimenting and I’ve made loads of different shades in each colour. Hopefully one of these will match!


My brother came to chat whilst I was busy and snapped me without me knowing ...I don’t really like having my photo taken so I’m pleased I didn’t know he took them until the one smile!



 

I’ve had a fair few workshops this month, quite a variety of different items have been made and lots of new smiley faces.


Here’s just a few photos.


Thanks for reading if you've got any questions leave me a comment :)

 
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