A herd of turtles

A good art space is inspiring. It makes you want to make art. 

photo by Heather Malone

Karen Gerhardt's studio is, without a doubt, one of the best art spaces I've ever been in. After our tour, I couldn't wait to go downstairs and start painting.

Unlike the overglaze china paints Karen uses on her realistic horse sculptures, we used decorative art glazes on these bisque turtles.

There's no "snot on glass" effect with these. They mix with water rather than glycerin, and rather than sitting on top, the paint sinks right into the unglazed porcelain.

Because the paint dried almost as soon as it was applied, the entire turtle could be finished in one session.

But here's the rub: The color of the wet paint is not even kind of related to the color it will be after its fired. For reference, this is my turtle after I painted his skin parts. 

And here he is before he went in the kiln.

At risk of spoiling the big reveal, this is how he ended up. Crazy, right?

photo by Karen Gerhardt

To help us navigate this very complicated issue, Karen had numbered all the colors and created a key. This helped us see what we were aiming for even when we couldn't actually see it.

Some of the colors had chunky particles in them. These melt in the kiln, producing wonderful, arty effects.

It was really fun watching everyone paint their turtles and trying to guess what they'd look like after firing.

After we were done, we took group pictures.

There's Angelo's, with mine in the background.

Here's the rest of them, along with some bonus pumpkins and acorns.

Who knew painting turtles could be this fun? Thank you again, Karen. That was perfect.

Stay tuned for the big, post-kiln reveal!