September 7, 2015

Hand Painted Mugs

Since we had plenty of porcelain paint markers that I did not use for the Blueberry tea set, I picked up a four more white mugs while out at Ikea recently. They have a nice smooth surface and are a great size for drinks. Being cheap doesn't hurt either.
the markers we have, this is two sets.
I decided to make two for myself. Greedy, I know, but I was having too much fun.

The first is a totoro and soot sprite design. I used the Totoro gingko leaf design that I've wanted to get a tattoo of, but probably never will. I modified it a bit to fit in a wider direction and gave him a little chibi totoro friend with a leaf. On the opposite side I added a few soot sprites to balance out the mug. I really like how simple and clean this design is. It is not cluttered and has a lot of breathing room with so few designs and the single black outlines.


The second I got a bit more ambitious. I knew I wanted a mug with Lion on it from Steven Universe. Luckily the two sets of markers we got had two different pinks! I thought about doing just his face really big, but after looking through the Crewniverse tumblr, I decided to make him sleeping on the side. They put up a few rough images as placeholders to let us know what's going on or as alternate title cards and I love the way they look, especially the school themed ones... In particular I liked this one for Lion 3, which was a particularly emotional episode.
I tried to recreate that sleeping lion on the side and made sure to give myself plenty of room for him to fit. Started with the outlines, then added the color in. He's a little darker pink than I would like, but they are the ones I had and he is still recognizable. Once he was on the cup, he looked lonely and there was a ton of white space. I thought about adding Steven or a gem, but I had none of the colors I would need for anyone else. So instead I added Rose Quartz' flag insignia on the opposite side and had it spiral out and behind Lion, terminating in a rose. Click here to see a short video since it's hard to show the whole thing in pictures.



I also made one for my mom-in-law for her birthday. She had a little trouble deciding what she wanted, but we settled on a bunch of Studio Ghibli stuff with lots of colors since her office is pretty dull. Can you name them all?



Finally, I used the fourth one I got to make a birthday present for a good friend from high school and college. This one I covered all over with small images and logos from a lot of things he likes, as well as a small sentiment that we both share.



These were just too darn fun to do. I can see myself making a lot of them. I know I have to pick up a few more since my hubby wants one too. I this is like what I always wanted those paint pottery places to be when I was a kid, but better. Now if only they had more colors to choose from. Heh, maybe I'll have a paint your own mug birthday party next year. Yeah, I'm an adult!

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: Each cup took anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours to draw on. You let them dry for around 4 hours and then bake at 320 for 30 min, for these markers anyway...