Ceramic Croft Houses

Ceramic Croft Houses

As can be seen in Avril’s paintings, the majority of her work is based around Shetland’s traditional croft houses, and one Christmas she decided to extend her range to ceramic croft houses.

Up until this point all of Avril’s work was painted, however she decided she fancied a new challenge and bought herself a peerie kiln for Christmas. Avril taught herself the techniques needed to create ceramics, mostly from YouTube videos, and it took her around 6 months to master the technique needed to make her cute peerie houses (it did result in quite a few bad moods!)

Glazed ceramic croft houses

Avril's mini kiln

Cutting out clay ready to be shaped into peerie croft houses

To make just one croft house takes around three weeks. The process begins by moulding the clay, which is then left to air dry for two weeks. Then it is fired to 1,000 degrees in the kiln for 24 hours.

The next step is to glaze the ceramic with four coats of glaze. Avril uses floating glaze to create different results each time, making each ceramic unique. It is challenging to paint as the different types of glazes cannot mix or it does not come out well. It is then fired again for another 24 hours at 1,100 degrees.

In the past few years Avril has grown a lot in confidence in her ceramic skills and has introduced some other ceramic products including croft house keyring's and Christmas baubles.

Each ceramic is hand made with love in the Shetland Islands and can be purchased here: https://avrilthomsonsmith.com/collections/ceramics 

Back to blog