From Clay to Kiln
Every commission travels the same thousand-year road: raw clay, a spinning wheel, a hand-held brush, glaze, and days of wood fire. Scroll — we sketched the journey for you.
Kneading the clay
Jingdezhen porcelain stone is wedged and kneaded by hand until every air bubble is gone — the quiet, muscular start of every piece. Bad kneading means a cracked pot days later; there are no shortcuts, only patience.
Throwing on the wheel
On the spinning wheel the clay rises between wet palms into a bowl, a plate, a vase — the blank form we call the pi (坯). It is trimmed leather-hard, then bisque-fired once so it is ready to take the brush.
Painting your image
This is where your photo enters the story. Working from your picture, we paint directly on the raw glaze-ready body in cobalt oxide — the classic qinghua blue-and-white — or in coloured overglaze enamels. One brush, one hand, no decals, no printing. A sleeping cat, a wedding portrait, a family home: if you can photograph it, we can paint it.
Glazing
The painted piece is dipped into a bath of transparent glaze. The cobalt painting disappears beneath a chalky skin — an act of faith. Only the fire will bring the blue back, deeper and brighter than it went in.
Firing in the wood kiln
Pieces are stacked in the climbing kiln and the fire is fed with pine, hour after hour, up past 1,300 °C. Wood firing is the old, hard way — flame and ash sweep through the chamber and give each glaze a depth no electric kiln can imitate. Days of heat; days more to cool.
Opening the kiln
The kiln door is unbricked and the piece comes out changed: the chalky glaze now glass, the grey cobalt now luminous blue, your image fixed in porcelain for the next few hundred years. We photograph it, pack it, and send it home to you — anywhere in the world.
Your story deserves the same road.
Send us one picture — a pet, a person, a place — and it will travel from clay to wood fire in the hands of our painters.
Start a commission