There was a lot that went into creating these mandalas. First I would roll out a slab of porcelain clay. After ribbing smooth i'd leave them for a couple hours to get a bit stiffer. After the first round of firings I found it was easier to cut out my shapes if the clay had started stiffening up a bit but not get leather hard. Then it would be looking at my designs and deciding which pattern I was cutting out. Then came cutting out each individual piece, either free hand or with some cutters I bought for this project (video below).

Then sometimes i'd leave them to dry a bit before smoothing them all out with a sponge. (video below)

Bisque Firing

For this project I found that I needed to bisque fire my work before I could glaze because of how delicate and thin these pieces were. I can't tell you how many I broke when cleaning or just moving them, once bone dry they're at their most vulnerable. They'd get bisque fired for 7 hours to cone 06 and take 15 hours after that to cool down.

Underglazed Pieces

After being sanded down each piece would get three layers of underglaze colour, some which I would mix myself. Then they would get some highlights with a lighter or darker shade. Finally some pieces would get a black outline to define some features.

Timelapses of me glazing a set and adding black outlines

Finally after under glazing, each piece would get coated with 3 layers of clear glaze before being glazed fired. Loading the kiln with all these pieces takes so long! They can't touch in a glaze firing otherwise they'll fuse together but with so many little pieces it was like a jig saw. Then when it's fired, porcelain shrinks a lot so when I open the kiln it seems like I had much more room than I actually did. Here's a quick time lapse of me putting down the first layer which I actually carried on loading for another 10 minutes after stopping filming, trying the squeeze in any little piece I could. My kiln would always fire full so I was always fighting to fit everything in. I fire to cone 6 Glaze which takes 9 hours to reach 1221 degrees Celsius.

Before and after Firing

Adding some Gold

I decided to add some gold lustre to a few pieces to add a bit of sparkle. I always love adding lustres to my ceramics. I had to do it outside as gold lustre is very toxic to breathe in so it's safest to apply outside. Here are some time lapses of me adding the gold. These will fire to cone 018 which takes 5 hours.

The Before & After