Casper was a lab-hound mix that a friend of mine adopted about 12 years ago. I still remember the day he brought him home–Casper was a big, goofy puppy, all limbs. He was a gentle and sweet-natured dog all his life. When he finally had to leave us last autumn I knew I wanted to make Casper a special urn for his ashes.

After the piece was thrown, I used a shellac technique to get the relief in my design. It’s very simple, using ordinary shellac, you hand-paint a design onto a bone-dry piece of pottery.

After the shellac dries, use a damp sponge to rub the clay body very gently. The sponge will remove layers of clay from the piece, except where the shellac is. Fire the piece as normal, when it comes out of the kiln you will have a raised design.

After that I cross dipped my piece in a few different colours to finish it. I gifted it to my friend a few days ago, and he agrees that Casper would have liked it :)