I have a lot to catch up on here! My hands have been busy with what you see above, and more, plus I’m still catching up on indoor and outdoor projects and upkeep around my house that have been waiting a couple of years. I’ve been putting my new hip to work every day with something new.

Only one of the items in the selection above is new, the rest are replenishing stock, but I finally have the space to make a large number of things at once without shuffling things all over the house and all over the studio. This enables me to work on two projects at once without the need to put the first one away to work on the second, as I have in the studio.

One of my indoor projects has been to slowly transform a section of my basement into a studio that’s intended for things like making polymer clay objects with more space than I have in my studio, and baking them in the little oven I bought that, especially in summer, is best used in the basement (with no air conditioning). Prior to this I either made them in the studio and carried them down to the kitchen to bake in my regular oven, or made them in the kitchen and baked them in that oven, then took them back up to the studio to paint and finish, and hoped the cats didn’t walk on anything during the process. At any point I could damage things with handling and it could all take days. Now I could spend an evening in the basement making these things and leave them to cool while I was also sewing in my bedroom and framing in the studio the same day.

Each design is adapted from something in my existing artwork. The three feline designs were adapted from daily sketches and a photo, and the flower design was adapted from a popular photo. Each dish is formed and painted individually. I roll the clay fairly thin, cut it with a metal shape or by hand, then place it into a base that will give it the dimensional shape that makes each item a dish instead of a flat tile. The only difference between trinket dishes and decorative dishes is the size.

I featured the Curving Silhouette trinket dish earlier this week because I finished them first, and now it’s time to follow up on the rest of what’s in this photo. I’ll be featuring them all individually in posts. The feline-themed dishes are already available and you can find them through the links below. Clockwise from the top:

• “Big Nap” decorative dishes in three variations inspired by Japanese brush pen sketches, by Andy Warhol and by Theophile Steinlen.
• “Heart Cats” decorative dishes.
• “Curving Silhouette” trinket dishes.
• And, finally, the newest inspiration, “Flowery” decorative dishes, for now in two combinations but soon in more.

I initially called this the “Woodland Sunflowers Bowl”, inspired by a photo of three woodland sunflowers, but because the idea expanded once I got them done I’ve made the name more general. I initially created this last year, but it immediately began to crack and fall apart. I kept that first experiment, intending to return to it once I figured out why that happened, and so I did. I roll the clay thin, then hand-cut each flower and add the texture with fingers and tools and construct each bowl from three individual flowers inside a cereal bowl to give it the raised shape. Each bowl is unique. I may also choose to make the flowers white daisies or pink cosmos or blue chicory or violet asters. For now I’ve made the woodland sunflowers and daisies. Now I need to make more dishes!

WHERE TO FIND THESE

You can find these dishes in the Trinket and Decorative Dish Gallery.

See more handmade gifts in my Handmade Gifts Gallery.

Other items with the same art or design To find all items on this site with the same art or design, use the search box for the name of the artwork and you'll find all that's available.

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