currently playing with... parian porcelain

I love experimenting with shapes and thicknesses of clay, seeing how far I can take the medium before it breaks, bends, or cracks!

At the moment I've been playing with porcelain—parian porcelain to be exact.

Parian ware is a type of bisque porcelain that imitates marble. It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured white marbles, used in ancient times for sculpture. 

This is a gorgeous casting slip. The thickness of the final piece is all down to the length of time you leave it in the plaster mold.

I wanted to see how fine I could cast a bowl so I could get a butterfly image in the base if you held it up to the light. I had seen images of boats in the bottom of my grandmother's bone china cups years ago, and thought… I can try that! They were amazing—you only got to see the image when you had drunk all your tea.

This is my first attempt. Not sure how successful the overall design is as you can only see the image when the bowl is empty and you hold it up to the light—not quite the same as the cup, as that is what naturally happens when you drink. Perhaps I could make tea bowls next!

Apologies for the slightly out of focus picture - I'll get my husband to do a proper one next time!