Alright everyone, here’s the plan for the upcoming week: by following my illustration (shown above), I will shape the beads, dry the beads, and paint the beads before firing them. The good news is that I only have to fire these beads once since the slip paint I’m going to be using doesn’t need a second firing. The bad news is that slip paint needs to be painted onto leather-hard clay, so I’ll have to tread a very delicate line between too-wet and too-dry beads when I paint them.
I chose the owl and fish pendants because they were too charming not to include in my final product, even if they do end up looking a little wonky because of how detailed they are. I’m not willing to tango with red slip paint, so I’ll be using white slip paint to embellish the pendants as well as to add decorative Moche patterns to my spherical beads. I’ll check back in next week with a progress update, see you then!