Monday, February 20, 2012

Decorative Butter Dishes

I have been making decorative butter dishes for a few years now and I am always thrilled to decorate them with unique patterns. Because of their time consuming nature, I usually made 12 at a time. This time I decided to challenge myself and make 30 of them. Most of these are for wholesale orders, so I have been a busy bee.

I made all different patterns and had to really scratch my head on these.

Few things I realized from making larger quantities at one time...
  • You increase your efficiency. For example, you pick up one tool and do the same step on all the butter dishes. Rather than picking up and putting down 10 tools for each piece. This saves a lot of time.
  • Develope quicker ways to do the same thing. I made a new tool which helps me score and slip. More on that in another post.
  • And because I wanted different designs on all butter dishes, I came up with some really cool new patterns.
  • And most of all your hand developes a memory, just like playing the piano which makes things go a lot faster and your work will continue to improve.
Do share your insights on what you have learnt working in your studio.
 

8 comments:

Patricia Griffin Ceramics said...

Wonderful to see them all lined up like that. 30! That's awesome.

Charan Sachar said...

Thanks Patricia. I always have such a great sense of accomplished after I am done slip decorating my work. This is where most of my effort goes in. After this it is just wax resisting and a dip in the glaze.

JDWolfe said...

gorgeous!

Chuck Pefley said...

Production work is the way to go if you can. And you're right on about the musical instrument analogy.

Your blog seems to be working fine, by the way -:)

Chuck

Charan Sachar said...

Thanks Chuck for checking. Hope to make it to the market someday. :)

Melissa said...

I love these Charan!

Alorinna said...

My problem as a hobby potter is that I love to design things and never go back and make quantities of them. I think I shall make this a personal challenge :)

Charan Sachar said...

Alorinna, I used to be the same way. When I was getting orders of the same thing, I had to get into production mode. And everytime I increased the number of same items I made the better they got and more efficient I got. So just do it and you will realize the benefits!

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