Sunflower Pet Urns

Why people choose sunflower

Sunflowers turn to face the light. It is a real behaviour with an unglamorous name — heliotropism — and it maps almost too neatly onto a dog who followed you from room to room.

This is the least melancholy theme we make. Owners choose it for animals who were relentlessly, sometimes exhaustingly, happy, and who would be badly served by something in muted grey.

How this design is made

Each bloom is painted in two passes: the petals first in a lighter yellow, then the centre built up in browns and ochre once the first layer has set enough not to bleed.

We often add a bee somewhere on the piece, small enough that people find it a week after it arrives rather than immediately. Say if you would rather we did not.

Yellow is one of the few glazes that comes out of a 1200°C firing brighter than it went in, so the finished piece is more saturated than the raw painted version looks.

Read more: How we sculpt your pet by hand