Little Forest Studio

Small ceramic studio that celebrates the beauty of nature through art. I make a lot of teapots and love experimenting with new stuff! Sometimes I like to see things explode >:3

[chamerionstudio]

🍄Welcome to the blog!🍄

- I am 21 yo British/Russian ceramicist based in St Petersburg

- This is a blog where I share insights into my work, tips and tricks that I learned along my journey and silly little experiments that I do sometimes.

- I love nature in all of its forms and I take inspiration from a lot of things I see in my daily life. Mushrooms, moths, cool rocks… you’ll see a lot of random stuff

- I experiment with mixing different clays and different glazes. I’m always up to see if something blows up in the kiln hehehe

- Please feel free to ask me anything and I will try my best to give the best answer I can

🍄 Important information 🍄

- I try avoiding conversations about politics. Please do not ask me political questions

- Please be respectful. This blog does not tolerate discrimination or hate speech of any kind

- I do not engage with any ai generated content. Please do not submit it/ tag me in it etc.

- Please feel free to share your work in the ask inbox as well. I love promoting the work of other creators and I’d love to see what my followers are up to :3

- Stay safe, stay healthy and stay creative!

[chamerionstudio]

Wanted to share some cool insects that I photographed recently :3

Photo 1: unknown, Photo 2: Chrysoperla carnea (Green lacewing)

Photo 3: daddy long legs, Photo 4: some sort of bee (I think)

Photo 5: unknown, Photo 6: cucumber green spider

Photo 7: four-banded longhorn beetle, Photo 8: crane fly ft. some small spider

Photo 9: Hoverfly/ syrfid fly, Photo 10: could be a type of orange swift moth (not sure tho)

Disclaimer: I know nothing abt insects so I may have gotten some names wrong. If you know any of the ones I missed or have any input at all, plz do let me know!!

[chamerionstudio]

Some of my new porcelain stuff! Both made on the pottery wheel and both cracked slightly on the bottom (because ofc they did)

These were a gift for my grandma who loves white tableware :3

Excuse my peak photography skills once more

[mothermoosemayhaps]

[chamerionstudio]

Some very interesting fungi that I found in the forest today!

I don’t know the names of any of these yet but I am very determined to find out… if anyone knows any please let me know!

And yes the tiny white one is definitely a fungi because it has little gills on the inside

[chamerionstudio]

Little studio update!

So I wanted to share the shenanigans that I currently have going on because I’m trying to make this blog more cozy and personal :3

1: a lot of new jewellery!

After realising that I, in fact, have free will, I decided to experiment more with making jewellery that I would wear myself, rather than making stuff that I think people will buy. Some of my latest pieces turned out so well and I’m extremely happy about that :3

Also, I’m working on a modular pendant hanging system that will use a universal hoop which will work with all of my pieces. It’s aimed towards making the process of switching out pendants much easier and more accessible. It also allows users to hang their own objects and pendants alongside my products, making it more customisable :3. This project is still developing but it’s something I’m really excited about!!

Some snippets of that:

2: My studio space is a mess rn

I work in a shared co-working ceramics space which recently asked us to move all of our stuff into a much smaller space. I currently have two shelves at my disposal and I made a little illustration of how they look like compared to those of other makers 😭😭

I also have like 6 cups of different clay reclaim and NO SPACE FOR ANYTHING hahaha (6th one not included because it’s bigger)

3: I’m making ceramic daggers now!

The process of making them is so incredibly fun and I want to do a whole line of them. Maybe have little dagger pendants and dagger shaped cutlery heheh. Also yes I’m hoping to actually make them sharp

4: I’ve chosen a market that I want to attend this year. That will (hopefully) be авторские штучки in Saint Petersburg, either in August or in September, as well as maybe another one which I won’t announce yet.

I’m also working on a VK page for my business because a lot of the exhibitions judge you by your social media quality and presence. Vk is a weird social media for me but I’m trying my best to figure it out haha

6: other news

I’m gonna try some Raku firing this summer (super excited!!!), planning to attend another course at the academy of ceramics and will finally start a digital art course on domestika. Also working on a ren faire costume!!! It’s a shame I’ll be going alone this year but i’m super excited to finally attend a fantasy festival in a cool outfit made mostly by myself :3

I also planted some strawberries and some herbs in my little garden + grew some random grass instead of mint 😭👍

[chamerionstudio]

Some flower bowls and pendants :3

Only used ceramic paints and clear glaze for this one

[chamerionstudio]

Hey guys look I made some mushroom cups!

These turned out better than I thought hehe

Now I’m gonna try to make the cups themselves on the wheel to make em more even. Still trying to find a good clear glaze too because my current one randomly chooses to turn blue sometimes lmao

[chamerionstudio]

Where is the soil mother 👹 - screams the potato in my cupboard

Inspired by this one photo of a very pretty overgrown potato

[chamerionstudio]

Some of my paintings :3

The first two paintings are from my photos, the two boats are from my dad’s photos and the rest are from my head.

The last one is very dark so it’s hard to photograph but the idea is that it’s the sea at night. It’s easier to understand if you zoom out

[chamerionstudio]

your art is so cool

Thank you so much!!! I’m really glad you like it :3

[chamerionstudio]

Some new stuff coming soon 👀👀

[chamerionstudio]

Some of my less sucessful cups…

You might be wondering, well what went wrong? Lemme tell you….

- my main issue is that I didn’t do glaze tests in advance and never tested how these glazes would combine together. So while in some places they blended in just fine, the blue and pink glazes on that smaller cup just did not work together well. Also the lilac glaze on weird cup below doesn’t look lilac at all… it just became transparent. Perhaps I layered it too thin as well

- the black and white cup is a mix of black and white porcelain. I actually did do tests for that one, but in the end it just lookes muddy rather than marbly if that makes sense. I need to use a different mixing technique next time however, it means I will have to minimise any touch ups later so as to not mix up the pattern. Also the clear glaze on this one flopped

- The brown cup on the top was meant to be coal black (the clear glaze flopped once more)

- the vaguely green cup was supposed to be blue and consistent throughout

- the cup with the brown and blue gradient is my only sucessful cup from that batch and is actually the cup I use for my morning tea :3

[chamerionstudio]

Some little forest creatures in progress :3

[chamerionstudio]

Once upon a time I used to build structures / altars in the forest….

Icl it’s such a relaxing activity because there’s birds chirping all around you, random bugs and plants everywhere. Truly a great way to connect with nature. How I wish I had irl friends who would do weird forest shit with me huhu

I used to make tiny fires but this year I want to make a bigger structure where you can make an actual fire and cook something (using fire safety ofc)

[chamerionstudio]

So this is the counterpart to Vönésyötti albeit, a tiny version of it. Unfortunately I broke a bit of its tail off :(

But fear not! I’m planning to make a bigger and more detailed one soon hehehe

The Vönéräigner (Finnish phonetics) is a type of carnivorous deer that feeds on anything that moves. When you first see it, the deer might look harmless, but one wrong move and you’re dead in seconds. It has three jaws, each one has three rows of teeth. It also has two big claws on its legs and its tail/horns are covered in tiny razor sharp spikes. It can rearrange, break and even remove its own bones to fit into tiny spaces. Its limbs, despite being so weirdly shaped are extremely powerful, allowing it to run at insane speeds and jump higher than most living being. It allows certain mushrooms to grow on its body, eg. mushrooms that glow in the dark with a sickly blue light. The creature hunts primarily during the night and rarely attacks villages (although it very much can). Apart from being virtually unkillable it is thankfully, very rare.

[chamerionstudio]

BEHOLD MY SON

My favourite creature so far just because for once something turned out exactly how I intended it to. There is a lot of lore behind it but I’ll add a small summary at the bottom

In my mythological world, this creature is a type of herbivorous deer that lets mushrooms and moss grow on it as a defensive strategy. The reason for that is because its whole design is meant to mimic another type of deer, which just so happens to be an apex predator of the forest. The Vönésyötti (Finnish phonetics) is a harmless creature that slowly roams the forest in search of food during the night time. Its limbs aren’t as bendy and misshapen as that of its counterpart therefore, its movements are limited and at times painful. It forms a mutually beneficial relationship with the scarlet cup mushroom but can also host some other smaller species. These beings can live for hundreds of years however, they get slower with age and at some point their death comes simply because they are no longer able to move at all. There’s more lore ofc but that’s the short summary hehehe