Post #696742 by danlovestikis on Sat, Oct 19, 2013 2:56 PM

Duane, I can't hug you enough for your wonderful post. Thank you for taking the time to share so much history. I love having it here on my thread and I shared your post on the event thread too. You brighten so many days for us all. You are a treasured friend.
Wendy and Dan

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I am truly back to work. Today I'd will share the steps to make the thank you mug for Marlene aka VampiressRN. It's easy to guess what her mug will look like.

Yep it's a VampiressRN mug.

To make small objects like teeth I use a tiny wet paint brush to shape them.

Next I carved a line around the face.

Added eyelashes and the RN in the heart. Marlene has the dearest heart of anyone you'd meet.

I carved the Sacramento Ohana thank you on the back.

Now it slowly dried in a loose bag for a couple of weeks and then was bisque fired. Here I've just glazed the inside of the mug.

For this mug I filled each word with red glaze and then let it dry.

Next I filled each letter with wax resist so that the black glaze for the body wouldn't fill in and hide the words.

NOw I painted the body.

See how the black glaze pulls away from the wax resist? Even where it didn't pull away it did when the mug was fired.

Front done and drying.

Back done and drying.

Now it went into the kiln to fire over night.

Front done.

Although the back was ok I later painted the letters in red enamel and set the enamel by baking it in the home oven. I thought it looked better without any white showing.

Marlene aka VampiressRN was totally surprised by her thank you mug.

And now you have the rest of the story.

Cheers, Wendy