Luminous Clay

A contemporary guide to creating beautiful, translucent ceramics.

Porcelain and bone china are known and prized for their fineness, delicacy, and translucence, but can be difficult to use and pose particular problems for the potters and ceramic artists using it.

In Luminous Clay, bone china expert Angela Mellor aims to demystify these clays, encouraging more ceramists to explore these exciting mediums. The book explains a new way of working with bone china, a clay body created by the addition of bone ash to porcelain. With the introduction of paper pulp, the clay is transformed, allowing freedom of expression through hand-building that was previously impossible and enabling the potter to take full advantage of its whiteness and translucency.

Gorgeous photography throughout demonstrates how ceramicists around the world are able to create extraordinary pieces that ripple and bend light.

Mellor covers the main methods of working with bone china, including mould-making and slipcasting, along with techniques that have allowed her to play with the transparency and surface of clay. Decorating methods, firing procedures, and electrical lighting to maximise translucency are also explored, along with stunning images and methods used by other ceramists.