The Craft of Ceramic Bead Making
February 6, 2021
The Craft of Ceramic Bead Making
Learn about the process of how we create our unique lantern beads, one of Claycult's most ornamental beads requiring special tools and training.
Greetings, As I know many of you are curious about how we craft some of our beautiful ceramic beads, as an introduction, I will take you through the process of crafting one of my absolute favourite clay beads … our handmade lantern beads. One of our most unique and ornamental beads requiring special training and multiple handmade tools.
Firstly we need to create the lantern form. Not the easiest shape to make, with its conical ends & wide girth, it requires skill and patience to create a uniform & symmetrical form. A hole is placed through the centre using a bamboo skewer & we are ready to start our intricate surface decoration.
Our unique design is created using a series of our own handcrafted, ceramic tools. To begin, a very fine border is placed around the edges of the bead as a frame for the complex pattern.
The main part of the design is created by using a small stamp placed in clusters of four, four times around the bead. The spacing of each mark needs to be perfect for the design to ‘fit’, with each mark pressed firmly but gently into the soft clay.
Once we have our basic design, more small embellishments are added into the empty spaces using various hand made ceramic tools & stamps to give an exquisite ornately designed bead. Scroll down to watch our master Lantern maker, Srey Mom, working on the main body of the design.
When completely dry, the beads are bisque fired in their raw state before being painted in dreamy translucent glazes which pool in the recessed areas highlighting the intricate design. We have a few tricks with our glazing (trade secrets), allowing us to create multiple levels of different colours.
As in the pic below where the Egyptian blue glaze appears to bleed a deep red from beneath. This type of glazing in particular highlights the exquisite design.
Here are some of our products using Lantern beads:
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Lucienne
It began with a passion for design, which led to years of studying and working with clay. Later, Lucienne’s love of travel led her to Cambodia, a country with a rich history of artisans, and along with its smiling, open-hearted people and wild ways, it was easy to make the decision to stay. Lucienne founded Claycult Cambodia with a commitment to a sustainable artisan business for young Khmers, teaching and developing all aspects of the craft. Lucienne’s love of the natural world and abhorring the impact of fast fashion, means she is dedicated to creating enduring pieces that embody the intrinsic beauty of its culture and of the natural environment. Lucienne is currently based in Siem Reap with her husband, three rescue dogs, one cat and an ever-growing garden.
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Claycult applies Fairtrade practices in our studio & workshop, our beads are hand rolled by Khmer women living in our local community.
