This particular craft is a labor of love that spans over 15 years. While I was home for the holidays recently I came upon a small bowl I had made in a pottery class I had taken over a summer in high school (circa 2015). I had envisioned this piece as a tiny bowl for condiments accompanying an afternoon tea (like clotted cream, jam, or lemon curd) but now it is simply a work of art that I admire on my shelf along with my other crafts. High school Camille had sketched all the characters and painted flesh-tones on them; she had further fully painted the character on the interior of the cup whereas the others remained unfinished. The original piece, inscribed with my name and date of creation, looked as follows.
I took this piece of pottery back home to the other bay area with me (traveling from Tampa to SF Bay Areas) and finished painting all of the characters. I sadly do not own a kiln or kiln-safe paints (perhaps I’ll own both one day in my dream house; dare to dream). Accordingly, I finished this piece using acrylics making it beautiful but not at all functional as a piece of pottery. I used fine detail brushes to paint each character and chose a light blue for the background of the outer portion of the bowl and a deep, rich blue for the inner background. My background colors were inspired by my recent visit to Versailles. The blue tones struck me both as gorgeous and a great way to make the characters pop in their contrasting colors. The finished painted product is displayed below.
Fruits Basket was my favorite Anime/Manga growing up so this piece really brings me back to how much I loved that series and how much I enjoyed making fanart for it. Here’s to making beautiful, detailed pieces even if there’s a decade or so of time in between beginning and finishing the work. And for a little extra nostalgia, a video of the 3D work before and after set to the English version of the Fruits Basket theme song:
Millennial's Delight 