The decision to have a pot semi-custom made requires choosing a
"body", a theme, colors and images that you wish to have on a pot. Making one that is fully custom requires more decisions.
Below are 6 examples of the photos that would be sent to your email account, to show how a pot evolves as
Carol Helen Beule works on it.
1. Depicts a simple pot that is small with few colors. This original was designed to allow for piercing and changing many areas of this body. This evolved into Pot #2 original - Small pedestal.
2. Shows the evolution of a pot that has both carved and painted images on it. The goldfish is 1st carved and placed onto the body of the pot, and then the surrounding colored images are added. Finally the gold is added. This is a Medium Cymbidium pot. #16-2.
3. This frog pot was started before the Hummingbird Cymbidium pot, the most ambitious
at that time. Carol needed to be sure she could manage images in this fashion. It was an experiment for
Carol's own use. This body is #14 - Lg. quatrefoil.
4.
Carol had often wanted to use a darker clay and this gave her the chance to try one that allowed for better carving. Eventually
she decided to color glaze it. It could have been simply glazed with a clear matte glaze, and allowed the dark clay to show through. This is also body #14 - Lg. quatrefoil.
5. The chrysanthemum pot was a chance for
Ms. Beule to play with underglazes that are both matte and shiny, without needing
a 2nd firing. The was her 1st try at this technique. #12 body - with decorative feet.
6. The very large Cymbidium pot was a most ambitious project before trying to paint a Geisha on a similar sized pot. This was time consuming, detailed and complicated.
Carol made it twice, because the 1st time the underglaze became
"pebbly" and the pot was unusable. #16-1 body. These are very expensive.
7. This gallery contains the drawing and patterns used in the making of the pots.
8. This gallery shows how the design of a comissioned pot was inspired and details of the stages of painting and firing.
9. This gallery describes the process of carving clay pots and their finished form.