Riffing on blue

Four versions of a theme

I recently started working with blue glazes again. I find them so much more visually pleasing and I feel they a much more striking. In an earlier post, I displayed my first Back to Blue cup. Once this was complete and before it was gloss glazed I was so pleased by the balance of the colours I thought I'd continue with that project. I have now produced an additional four cups. I feel they have varying stages of 'medievalness'. By this, I mean they tend to drift from the original source material through the use of colour and the placement of the design elements. I think the smallest cup is now my favourite but this exercise has been a really good exploration of how far I feel it is acceptable to wander with the use of design elements and still present something I'd be happy to call medieval.

First up is a tiny cup with a slight taper. This is half a step away from the original source material. The leaf forms and distribution remain true to the original designs. The main changes are the lack of secondary design elements. If this were more period, the background would be full of smaller interwoven buddy vine and swirl shapes and the spiral fill would be minimal. This is my favourite of the three because it still feels like it could be Kashani.

Three quarters of a step away. I then created a larger cup with better vine branching. There are less leaves in this design as well. I was thinking of continuing the spirals into the lower half and making a semi-matching set between the large and small cups but I wasn't sure. I consulted my brains trust (Brooke in this case) if I should do spirals or the more modern solid blue. As I was torn, I went with her suggestion. This is still half a step away because some of the extant objects have blue backgrounds. Again, for this cup, I have eliminated the secondary design elements. I have also chosen to segregate the dark blue half of the cup which I feel is a more modern aesthetic.

The final cup started out as a very period design - vines inside a lobe shape. I repeated this design three times around the cup because four resulted in skinny slivers and two had too much space between them. If I could have made four work, I might have flipped them in opposite orientations as I've seen on some period items.

I was a bit stuck on the best way to link them together. I decided to continue the solid blue theme and fill the background. I soon realised that this would be a little overwhelming so I added a small leaf cluster in the blue. I also felt that the design was a little too stark but I didn't want to use blue shading as I had on the other cups because I was afraid it's detract from the size of the leaves. Instead, I added three dark blue lobes within the design to link the white section to the blue. I think it' worked reasonably well but the stark divide between the lobe and the rest of the cup is again, another step towards modern. I also thought I'd try to tie the secondary vines into the design again by switching out the spirals for an unplanned viney tangle. As a background pattern its chaotic nature is quite pleasing and really helps the eye skip over those sections. I tied this together with the blue area by filling in the leaf cluster with a similar pattern. This is the most modern of the set of four and the largest

Here is the view of the leaf shape. Note the white froth at the base of the cup? The blue underglaze fills the pores of the clay body. As a result, it won't hold as much clear gloss glaze. The glaze tends to run off or not bond as well as I wish it would. As a result, these solid underglaze areas turn out more matt than glossy. It does create a rather pleasing texture and a nice contrast between the white and the blue areas but I think I'd rather a full gloss. This is a problem for my fully coloured arbarellos as well so I need to find a way to resolving this. I'm not sure if this means dipping the body, waiting days for it to dry fully and then dipping it in clear again. I am worried too much clear gloss will smear my lines. This is an experiment I'll have to undertake with a small cup so it doesn't take me forever and a day to decorate it.