Painting my second-hand crockery

A while ago I started to paint some of my collection of found second-hand  vintage and retro crockery.  It's taken a while and I've not painted everything (far too many things to paint all of them!) but I've made a start at least.

I'd love to do something with the illustrations and maybe create some designs featuring the artwork - but for now it's just been fun to get the coffee pots, cups and plates out and paint some of the beautiful colours and patterns featured on the old pieces.

I thought I'd share some of the painting in progress and some of the finished artwork.....

All the illustrations were painted in watercolours; I only ever use Winsor & Newton watercolour paints (the tubes) and I personally prefer painting onto a 'cold-pressed' watercolour paper which has a textured surface, rather than painting onto a smooth 'hot-pressed paper'.  I used Arches medium 300gsm 100% cotton paper.

There is some good information about different watercolour papers on the Winsor & Newton website here: 

I always start by quickly sketching the object, and putting in some rough detail.  I then start to paint by building up layers of 'washes' of colour to get the basic outline, shape and shadows of the object.  When I'm happy with the overall body and shape of the mug or plate for example,  I'll move on to concentrate on the actual pattern.  Depending on whether I want a detailed or washy effect will depend on whether I allow the paint to dry, or work wet-on-wet.  If I allow the paint to dry in-between layers I can build up more detail, whereas wet-on-wet will give a more washy and free-flowing finished effect with less detail.