My art work process

Yeah, finally the summer is here but I spoke too soon when I realised now the summer is as hot as 30 degree! Worse part, most of the places has fan and not air condition! Been living in Asia for too long and I missed the cold 24 hours non stop working air condition all around public places. But, one thing is for sure, if you are staying away from the city, in a little village that surround with trees and forest nearby, it is not so bad at all.

Finally, I varnished my kitty ring dish but only to realise that I’ve forgotten to add the cheek details on the kitty. I will try to paint it on top of the varnished one and let’s see how it turns out.

How I made my kitty ring dish? I molded the air dried clay by hand and the dish I used a jar to hold the shape. The brand that I bought was pretty easy to mold (Das - biela). It was so far the best one to use comparing to other brand that I tried before but it takes longer time to dry it properly. For mine, it took 2 days.

I sealed the ring dish with acrylic paint. I’m using Daler Rowney and the color turns out pretty pastelly vibrant. Lastly, I used Pentart Decoupage varnish to make it waterproof. The cost of all these are not as pricey as I expected but it is really time consuming since I need to wait for each process to get it dry.

I started with some sketches before I decided what to make to plan my work process. This is for me to learn how to price my product and to see whether it is worth making it to sell. From my previous experience, I just make the products as soon as I felt like it but it is not time efficient and not productive at all. In the end, I had too many unsold products and it is hard to clear when there are not much sales going on. When there are too many unsold products it makes you feel unmotivated and it turns out you will doubt every time you start to make a new one and of course, there isn’t enough space for you to make more! Planning also let you see what is wrong or not good enough and to make changes a long the way. It is not so bad after all when you take your time to do some research and do some testing on your products before selling it. Why I am saying this because I used to think all these process is a waste of time. When I have the inspiration to make it happen and inspiration doesn’t come any time when you want it, I just want to quickly start working on it. The results can be very unpredictable because along the way you might feel good about making it but when it is done, it turns out you are not quite as satisfied as you wanted it in the beginning.

Well, all these processes are quite lenghty but I’ve made some progress. While I wait for my ring dish to dry, I made another batch with bunny. Got some feedback about my kitty ring dish from my family and it seems like I need to tweak a little bit. Overall it is quite satisfying.

Bunny Ring Dish