Come into play

Hallo to you all,

My name is Ivana, or simply Iva, as I like to sign my pieces.
My love for paintbrushes and colours began at the end of the primary school, when, during the summer holidays, I alternate embroidery and some charcoal drawings or some oil painted pictures on canvas.
My passion for china painting was born by a happy chance after my marriage, when, following my husband, I went to set up house in the little town where I'm still living. In the same time, my friend Mariella, bride too, left her native town and settled just in the flat near mine, on the same floor.
She was already painting successfully on china for a long time, and proposed me to put myself to the test with this material; so we could have shared our free time on Saturday, waiting for our husbands to come back.

So, painting on ceramic and china became the hobby I have rather fully devoted myself during several years and that let me discover and experiment with different techniques. In this art I see get married the fancy and the creativity with the usefulness of pottery.

This kind of painting allows in fact to decorate plates, dishes, trays, cups, bowls, pots, boxes, clocks.... that can be both simple pieces of interior decoration and objects having their own pratical usefulness.

When somebody asks me an opinion about the choice of the bonbonnières, I always suggest to avoid the little pretty things of no use, destinated to become dusty ornaments or to be forgotten in the end of a drawer, but rather to opt for some objects that could be used in the real life. And it isn't so true that little things might be cheeper or quickly done: it depends on "how" they will have been made (what pattern, what technique are chosen)

The pottery you will find in this site is almost entirely realized by the technique of the "third fire", that is to say that I paint on the glazed porcelain, that will be once more baked at the temperature of 750 - 800 degrees Celsius in suitable stoves. These works, according to the pattern and the technique, often require more than a fire.

I have been painting on porcelain for more than 20 years and during this time I have been constantly following courses of the most important Masters in the world; so I have been able to learn many techniques and to match them. Also today study, search and improvements are continuous. Now I alternate paintbrushes and pens, I use both colours and lustres, the gold and the platinum, the relief and the digging. Even the drawings are quite different: flowers, animals, landscapes, portraits, abstract subjects. Whatever is the pattern, I take care of the details with the attention and the accuracy of a miniaturist.