I love lychee season. When I lived in Asia, I could never resist picking up a bunch or two of the sweet, juicy fruits on the way home from the studio. The particular plump, heart-shaped variety shown here is large (4-4.5cm in length), fragrant, juicy, and oh so sweet!

In my humble opinion, lychees are one of nature’s best little treats. They are perfectly packaged in snack sizes and as sweet as candy, but so much more satisfying… wishing I could get my hands on some right now.

And they look so appetizing on a simple dish!

The turquoise and coral colors on this shelf of old porcelain figurines caught my eye…

I love how there are so many little details to explore on these shelves. Look closely and you’ll discover little bits of Chinese history going on here — items alluding to China’s imperial past, recent Communist era (including a slumbering Mao), and of course its rich ceramics tradition.

Sometimes I need a kick in the bottom to get me back on to the creative track. Having self-declared 2013 my “Year of Creativity,” I have collected some inspiring words and nuggets (or beans, if you will) of wisdom to ponder and to fuel the process. Once in a while, I’ll share those words here…

At the beginning of the year, I was encouraged to write down one attribute that described who I was, and two attributes that I wanted to grow over the next twelve months. I like the following quote as it incorporates two of the three attributes I wrote down: “creative” and “courage.”

I am reminded that anything worth doing often requires us to first take a step and act beyond what we would normally be comfortable doing; and being creative is just one of those things.

It was grey and rainy (and impossible to find a cab) this morning, so instead of heading out to the studio I decided to stay in and get more painting done. Five hours later, I can happily report that my batch of little greenware knick knacks are finally all embellished in qinghua paint!

I feel as if I just finished a mini qinghua paint-a-thon. In trying to complete the decoration on a bunch of small hand-shaped porcelain pieces, I’ve spent the past day and a half painting, painting, taking a break, painting, taking a break, painting, painting, painting… you get the idea. Of course, I also wanted each piece to have its own unique detail, so I spent half the time figuring out what to paint on each piece. One painful lesson that I learned is that painting on tiny things can be a lot harder and more time-consuming than painting on large ones. I will say, however, that it was great practice for honing technique with those equally tiny brush heads.

The workhorses were my trusty brushes. I’m still getting to know each of their idiosyncrasies, as I keep acquiring them when I go to Jingdezhen — there’s this “brush lady” that I like to visit; she hand-makes a variety of brushes in her store and always takes the time to explain them to me.

Here are the brushes I used for my last Jingdezhen project (not all from the “brush lady”), all lined up, being dried for packing…

Unfortunately there was a little accident with the peach gum used to mix the paint… I lost a whole pot of it and a bunch of my brushes got “gummed.” Needless to say, clean up was not so fun.

Now I just have to figure out how to get all the pieces bisque fired without smudging the details.

新年快樂! And to all the non-Chinese-reading peeps out there — Happy Chinese New Year!

Today marks the first day of the year of the Snake. While I’m not a zodiac follower, I was inspired to make a snake-related piece. As I have been working with the slip-trailing method as of late, I decided to make a porcelain slip-trailed cup for all the tea I plan to drink…

I love love love how it came out. The creamy glaze with oatmeal speckles and the texture of the slip trail is just so yummy. To be honest, I had actually made this as a test piece for a white glaze on middle white porcelain, but this was my absolute fave out of the whole batch of cups fired along with it! Will definitely be making more of these…

Today is a big day… the inauguration of my snake cup : )

If somebody had told me a month ago that I would be starting 2013 in Jingdezhen I would have laughed it off. Yet here I am… The new year is only three and a half weeks old and I’m back in the porcelain capital on a whirlwind trip.

Twelve hours after making a decision to join a friend on his delivery task and hit the road, I found myself drowsily sitting in a spacious Mercedes SUV, coffee in hand, ready to make the 7-hour drive south-west to Jingdezhen. Neither of us had ever made a road trip in China and had no idea what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised.

We passed by small towns with old traditional houses, industrial cities puffing out smoke, scenic hillsides of bamboo groves and tea plantations, and drove through countless tunnels. The often odd Chinese way of doing things and funny language bungles made for an amusing road trip. On arrival in the porcelain city (which was hazy, on top of its permanent layer of ceramic dust), we unloaded our cargo, and I got right to work, running around to collect everything I would need to make my 72 hour stay worthwhile.

Now after toiling many focused hours over forty pieces, and having everything glazed and loaded into the kiln, I am finally allowing myself to relax and enjoy the rest of my short stay. Time will tell what the kiln will spit out. There is nothing I can do except to wait… and in the meantime to admire this beautiful ever-changing landscape of the glaze man’s wall.

Thus starts my year of Creativity.

My first trip to the porcelain capital of the world opened my eyes to the rich history of ceramics in China. From early on, the Chinese produced ceramics in an “assembly line” sort of fashion, with division of labor whereas various people were responsible for a different part of the process. As a result, a ceramics worker would become expert at his or her step in the production line. For example, a thrower would only focus on throwing the pots, which would then be passed on to the trimmer. The next step was decoration, which would be done by a painter or a carver.

On that first trip to Jingdezhen, my group had the opportunity to learn traditional “blue flower” painting from a qinghua painter with over 20 years’ experience — if interested, you can read the post about what we learned. After returning home and applying the techniques to my work, I realized that I was drawn to this particular form of decoration especially as it intersected with my Western aesthetics.

Upon the encouragement of my hubby and other supportive friends, I decided to go back to Jingdezhen on my own for a very brief residency so that I could learn more as well as spend some time practicing and producing work.

This time around, I had a private lesson with a younger qinghua artist who had a personal interest in both ancient techniques as well as modern applications. He not only painted qinghua, he also collected antique qinghua shards. As such, I had a chance to explore various styles of painting in addition to the more traditional method.

Wanting to make the most of my stay, I also took lessons in overglaze painting and carving. It was rather humbling to realize that I was learning techniques first practiced centuries ago to produce imperial ceramics ware.

Leaving Jingdezhen, I was left with the feeling that there is much, much more to learn. Even amid rapid modernization, the thread of history can be sensed running beneath the ever-changing cityscape of new constructions. The porcelain city is certainly one sitting atop many layers, not only of old broken pieces of pottery from another era, but also of various ancient techniques that have been passed on through time.