Triumphs

I'm a big fan of Triumph cars and belong to a car club with my husband, Rick. For the 2008 Regional meeting, I had the opportunity to design the trophy for the event as our club was hosting the event. We had a friend who had recently purchased a 1949 Tr2000. It is a beautiful car that has a different look than a lot of the Triunphs-a look that is one, I personally, love. I love the old '40 Fords,Chevrolets, Willys,etc
It also was a car that was going to be featured at the Nationals that year. So, to me it was the perfect choice to paint for the trophy.The event was going to be in Tyler, Texas, a city that is known for it's roses.
Keeping all this in mind,plus the fact that I wanted to see if I would like making tile as part of my business. I painted the following picture. This painting of the car is in the original color -which is a soft green metallic-almost a seafoam green. This  color I thought was pretty unique for a 1949 car. I painted the car with a British flag background, combining the Triumph logo and the Tyler city logo.  I later had to change the car color for the trophy-as it would be impossibe to match it in ceramic glaze and the cost for putting it on a t-shirt was another story.
I  made a relief of the painting-with a space for the metal plaques that  would describe the event the trophy was awarded underneath the relief. Then, the insanity started. From a mother mold, we poured well over 140 trophies. Members from the club would come over for painting parties-each trophy was painted 3 times in underglazes fired and then painted with clear glaze and fired again. This was a lot of work -not to mention pressing clay in the mold in the first place-and then pulling the piece-hoping it came out well and dried without cracking. This took weeks to accomplish-sometimes only to have the piece break in the firing process.
Needless to say, I decided I was not going to get into making tile! It was a learning experience and I was happy with the final outcome. Here is a link to the event-

http://www.redrivertriumphclub.org/regional2008_photos.html