As an artist I have received some unusual commissions, my children being probably the main source of my more bizarre commissions. I have painted cupcakes for my daughter, Knights and Saracens on my son’s wall, headboards, and I think even a spaceship from my sons days playing Eve Online.

Besides my children’s misuse of their mothers artistic skills (which I might add, I loved being able to do for them) I receive fun and very interesting requests for commissions, which I get stuck into with gusto! Lately I have been painting ginger jars. I love chinoiserie, especially blue and white ginger jars with dragons on them. I also love painting the intricate designs one finds on the ginger jars. It is oddly therapeutic and mediative.

So when I was approached to convert a pot a client had seen in a store to a ginger jar I was intrigued.

These were the photographs I was sent by the client. Definitely more Moroccan than Chinese ginger jar! The Kingdom of Morocco is renown for its pottery, covered with complex geometric, arabesques and beautiful, rich patterns. Moroccan art has been influenced by a diversity of cultures and Fez is the centre of their ceramic work. I don’t know if this is Moroccan, but the colours and shape of these two ceramic pieces scream Morocco to me.

To make the larger of the two pots into a ginger jar it needed its rather unique shaped helmet lid. I wanted to keep the handles rather than turn them into Foo dogs, or blobs of chewing gum stuck on the pots as my daughter refers to them as! The mustard ochre colour of the pot needed to be kept as did the cream and turquoise and intricate design – it just needed to look more ginger jar-ish.

The other squat pot did not need to be “converted”, but the client wanted magnolias, or maybe Rhodesian flame tree flowers painted into them. The colour, shape and intricate decoration needed to be kept. The texture and size of the flowers would have worked, but I felt the creaminess of the magnolias would have had the potential to be too much of the same, with a possible insipid end result, which concerned me. The Rhodesian flame tree was a distinct possibility, but the rich raspberry colours of a tree tulip seemed more of an exciting fit with the mustard coloured pot, the phthalo blue design and turquoise trim.

My art has introduced me through Instagram to so many other artists and clients commissioning work, or people just buying art I paint. It is a whole community out there that has broadened my connection to art and art lovers. So exciting to be a part of this!