Cuddling Otters

This is the only jar where I successfully created a cylindrical form on the wheel. Upon closing the form, I gently flatten out the top with my hands while bracing the sides due to the trapped air widening the pot. Then I take a rubber rib to create the 90 degree edges for a cylinder.

I wanted to sculpt something small to both decorate and act as a lid knob. What came to mind was a pair of cuddling otters. I made them very round and cartoonish so the underglaze painting needed to do most of the heavy lifting to convey the sea otters. Working this tiny was difficult. I needed to score, add slip and smooth out every attached ear and limb. While I’ve working at this scale before with polymer clay, it’s much harder with ceramics because the little pieces of clay dry extremely quickly. I barely have enough time to shape and attach the clay pieces.

For underglazing, I painted freeform waves with three shades of blue on the outside as well as a beach scene on the inside. The shell has a pink gradient too. Since the design was spontaneously created, I didn’t have the foresight to block out sections of the jar when painting on the waves. All the different colours of waves were layered on top of each other, resulting in the thickest parts of the paint to bubble after the final glaze firing. For waves, I felt like it was a nice touch to have some texture. But it did reaffirm that underglazes should never go beyond three layers at risk of bubbling.