Following my previous post, which can be found here, I have also made a ceramic dish for my cat. It just so happens to also look like my cat, sorta. When we first got her, Azazel, we knew she loved wet food, but the current dish we had was too deep for her whiskers. So, I took it upon myself to make her her very own wet food dish. For reference, here’s the beast.

She is a gorgeous gray longhair with these piercing yellow eyes. Her name comes from my favorite show, Supernatural, where the first main enemy is who we are introduced as “Yellow Eyes,” the yellow-eyed demon. We later find out his name is Azazel, and I thought the name was perfect for her. (Subsequently from Jack, my bird which I wrote about, who is named after a Nephilim in the show, a cross between an angel and a human with yellow-eyes who becomes the strongest character in the show.)

Anywho, when going about making the dish, I wanted to keep in mind her yellow-eyes and the shape of her cat head as well as making sure the sides of the dish were not too tall. I don’t have many progress pictures, but I promise to be descriptive.

I started with making a flat slab and cut out the shape of a cat head to make the bottom. From there, I made strips of clay to wrap around the sides in order to make the walls of the dish, making sure I properly adhere them together. I smooth everything out and then go about the eyes. All I wanted to be depicted was her eyes and to leave out all the other details. So, I made small, sharp, almond indents for her peepers.

My greatest difficulty came with her ears. The tiny corners were hard to smooth, especially without fancy tools. But, I made out okay and she was ready for her first firing and to be painted.

She was coated in a white glaze, like with my Jack sculpture, and painted with a glaze-safe paint. I mixed the black and white colors to make my desired gray shade, making the sides a darker shade for some contrast. I then took some yellow and colored in those indents I made for her eyes, then painting in the pupil with black. My one mistake with this step was not using enough pigment, because, as you will see with the final product, the color doesn’t come through strong enough without some light parts.

Now, she isn’t the prettiest girl at the party, but she still deserves some looks. If I were to do this again, I’d do it completely differently. I’m not in love with the shape, it looks unnatural, and the ears are too pointy, I feel. I also think that it would benefit from the extra detail, even if it were just whiskers.

Here I have her posing with it and she isn’t that interested. We ultimately realized that it wasn’t going to work the way I’d hoped. The edges are too low, so when she’s licking at it, a lot of food gets pushed off. It also doesn’t hold a lot, especially when we use big cans of food to feed her. So, I supposed I would also change that. It still works nicely as a dish, just probably not for food.

More like, jewelry, or coins.