Painting Pottery

Another fun birthday festivity that took place, and I forgot to tell you about, was pottery painting.  Funke Fired Arts was running a Valentine's promotion at the time, where if you painted two of the same pieces the second one was half off.  Pretty sweet deal.  Plus it gave us an opportunity to check out their relatively new pottery painting section of their studio, called the Atrium.  When you walk in, it looks like most pottery painting places, an assortment of fired pottery to paint and a variety of glazes.  However, they also have a huge water feature sitting in the back of the room (?), idea books filled with instructions on how to create different effects, many of there pottery pieces are very quirky and fun (even A and I had a hard time choosing what we wanted to paint because there were so many we liked) and wide variety of stencils, sponges, fabrics, etc. to create textures and designs on your piece.  They gave us a brief run through and then let us go for it.  Basically, you pick what you want to paint, fill out a form describing that and providing all your info so they can call you when it's ready to be picked up and then you're off.  There's no time limited and no charge for firing.  So, if you want to spend all day working on a light switch cover...you can, and you just have to pay the price listed on the back of that piece. 

Antoine and I decided to take advantage of the promotion and each painted an oversized mug.  Perfect for cereal or soup...or a gigantic cup of coffee!

They had decorated the studio with paper hearts for Valentine's day.  It was really quite adorable.

Antoine decided to try something different with his piece and use some fishnet type fabric to create texture.  We both really liked how it turned out.

 Antoine and I both had a great time, and we're already talking about going back soon.  Another nice thing about the Atrium is they let you bring in snacks and drinks, so it'd make a great date night or girls night.  And it's perfect for kids.  Since we went in the beginning of February and it is in an atrium, it was a bit nippy in there, so I suggest wearing layers!  They fire the pottery depending on how many pieces they have, and we were luckily that they were firing a batch that day (Saturday), so on Monday I got the call to pick our stuff up.  And since it was around Valentine's day, they wrapped them in red tissue paper and put them in a Funke Fired paper handle bag for us...a nice touch.  Everyone was super friendly, and I couldn't recommend it more!