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.