These cups document rather a long journey & one in which I may have travelled too far… My basic starting point was this delightful couple of cups given to us 20-odd years ago.
I set out to update them… many months later I have flying aliens on cups that are a bit yin and yang (some flare out, others taper in to fit together)
I think they’re aliens because my drawings got more and more fanciful until the faces sprouted wings. I loved the floatiness of the couples – a tad of Chagall perhaps. They are for couples in love.
Most cups have 6 aliens – 3 pairs of two, facing each other. Lots of hearts and kisses.
My near obsession with using slip to decorate reached a high point when I was making these; some use a recipe of oxides and are varying shades of blue, some use a commercial stain and are therefore flatter. I used a resist – of either latex or wax – to paint the aliens; it fires off to leave white. Latex was lovely but seemed to cause the slip to literally slip when I glazed them, so these ones are more like swimming aliens. All of them are porcelain and glazed with transparent, so food safe.