Eriko san's tea cup: tomonaoshi

Eriko san is my old friend living in Osaka. She had asked me to repair a broken tea cup which belongs to her favorite sencha tea set with five cups.

First I put the pieces together.
Although Eriko san wanted me to finish it with gold powder,
I thought it would be better to use 'tomonaoshi' technique.
Tomonaoshi is a finishing way using the same color with the ceramics so that the
joint lines will disappear or at least will not be that obvious.

This is my first 'tomonaoshi' work, and as I did it in the too short time 

 before I met her in Osaka today, it's far from perfect.

In fact, I would have to take more time to make the same color, to make the surface smooth

and to make the luster the same.

I need more practice.

jimon(地紋)

Sometimes lacquer painted surface becomes relatively large and gives a dull impression.

In that case there are a lot of techniques to cover it using seashell(螺鈿),

egg shell(卵殻), metal powder(梨地), metal foil(箔仕上げ) and so on.

Recently I'm practicing  'jimon' (地紋) that is to paint a pattern 

on the finished surface.

This is a traditional finite pattern called 'seigaiha (青海波)', or sea waves.

And this is a pattern of chrysanthemum. 

It took two hours after practicing on the tile as below.

I painted with lacquer and let it dry halfway and scattered gold powder on it to finish.

This is also a chrysanthemum pattern.