Guy Van Leemput – How to make a paper-thin porcelain bowl

Hi, my name is Guy Van Leemput, and in this workshop, I will show you how I make my very thin translucent porcelain bowls. I will show you step by step. I start by blowing up a balloon and draw the pattern on its surface. Then I take porcelain reïnforced with flax and I use it as thin as possible. I work direct on the balloon, starting at the bottom of the future bowl. First a small piece of porcelain with my stamp on it, then adding little cells one by one by manipulating the porcelain with small wooden tools, trying to not touch it too much with my hands. I can add only a small part each day. After quite a while (a week, sometimes a month) when the piece is finished, it has to dry evenly. Then, I can deflate the balloon and coat the inside with a layer of porcelain slip. As my bowls are fired upside down to counteract the effects of gravity and the melting process at this high temperature, I have to make a support (that is shrinking proportionally) for each piece. Then the piece is raw-fired (once fired) in a woodkiln at 1280 °C. This high temperature is needed for strength and translucency. The woodfiring gives the bowl a beautiful white and a sprankling blossom of glaze from ash deposits.

When you buy this workshop, you get:

• Watch my Online Workshop
  • The workshop will be around 1 hour long.
• Bonus Q&A
  • Join my bonus Q&A where I answered questions about my process face-to-face
• Lifetime Access to the Replays
  • The workshop and the Q&A are recorded, and you will have lifetime access to it. You can watch it online, or download it to your device to watch offline at any time

After this workshop, you could be making amazing work like this:

“When I am working – on the rhythm of my breath – on a new bowl it is very clear for me what has to be done. All attention goes to the work, the porcelain must not be too wet or too dry, I have to be careful because a balloon can break down quickly. So there is no time to worry or think about other things. There is only the bowl that is born.Then to be there is a wonderful gift.”

Guy Van Leemput (1967, Belgium) studied mathematics and ceramics. He has been invited several times for an artist-in-residency at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute, Jingdezhen, China. His work has been selected for competitions and exhibitions in his own country and in other European countries, as well as in Japan, China and Australia. At the Mino International Ceramics Competition 2014n, his work ‘Big Anas’ won the Bronze Award, it is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan. Guy was chosen as one of the Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artists 2020. In 2021 he was recommended by the Michelangelo Foundation as ‘Master Artisan’.

Website: www.guyvanleemput.be.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guyvanleemput