0 Comments
This week i worked on the first paper mache layers on my rats. Two of my rats, Charlie and Michael, now are partially paper mached. Next week i’m hoping to finish the layers on all three rats and then move on to painting them. I love my rat babies and they’re being very good. My underglaze piece was fired last night, so today i got to coat it with clear glaze. It was a terrifying experience and i hope i didn’t ruin my dear werewolf boys. please pray for them. This week I put my underglaze piece in the kiln to be fire. I’m returning (again...) to the mouth piece. Hopefully, third time’s the charm. I’ve made the bases for three paper mache mice that will be coming out of the mouth. It’s inspired by my grandmother, who’s been feeding the rats in her house to keep them from eating her food. Hopefully, with an actual point of inspiration to draw from, ill be able to actually get this piece done. If not, then i at least made three very cute fat babies. their names are Pat, Charlie, and Michael. This week, while waiting for my underglaze piece to fire, I tried to repurpose my mouth piece. I'm experimenting with adding an eye to the inside of the mouth to start. The eye's being painted on cardboard in acrylic. I'm not sure how I'm feeling about it yet, I might bring in some of my own acrylics to try and feel more comfortable working on the piece. I'm disappointed that I've lost a lot of my motivation and inspiration with this piece. The week I finished my underglaze piece and got it ready to fire. I added finishing touches to the texture and smoothed it out as much as possible. After firing, I'm going to be adding underglazes. I'm worried that the design is too bland, there's a lot of blank space that I'm hoping to fill with the underglaze. I'm hoping that using a creative painting style and lots of colors will keep the piece from being too bland. Here's a picture of the piece in the far back of the kiln because I always forget to take pictures. Last week, (Oct 19) I put finishing touches on my pit fire piece and waited for it to dry. While it was drying, I switched focus back to my Reinterpritarion piece. My piece is supposed to be a mouth with Thomas Moran’s “fiercely the red sun...” coming out of it. I’m running into a lot of frustrations with it though. I don’t like the colors of the lips, I don’t know what medium to use for the sky and sea, I can’t seem to figure out how to bring my design to life. I’ve lost a lot of my motivation to work on the piece, so I’m leaving it for now to work on other projects. I’ll come back to it when I have thought it out more.
This week my pit fire piece has been prepped and ready to fire on Sunday! I had a lot of debate over wether to glaze it or pit fire it. I think the pit fire will keep it feeling earthy and flowing, rather than a bright glaze. I wanted the piece to feel natural and organic, but I was nervous to give up so much control on the coloring. I tried to add plenty of elements that would leave bright, warm colors, and hopefully that pays off. While I wait, I’ve moved onto my underglaze project. I’m about to roll a slab to make a cup as a base for my design. I’m excited for the detailing and line work, which has always been a favorite of mine in art. Hopefully it goes well! For the past two weeks, I've taken a break from my Reinterpretation piece. I'm working on making a piece for our raku pit fire. I rolled a slab and cut out the oval shape for the base, then coiled, then cut with a wire for the slant. There's been some stuff going on with my mental health lately, so this piece has been mostly my way of working out my recent emotions. The process of making my piece has been about just doing what feels right. Making my piece has been extremely calming and working on it has cleared my head. It's about going with flow, and doing something that makes me comfortable. Clay isn't my favorite medium; I've always found it hard to work with. It's always been hard to execute my designs the way i want to but this piece has been going very well. I'm expecting a bit of a struggle with burnishing because of all the small areas and changes in relief. I also haven't decided what colors I'll be going for when we put them in the pit fire. This past week, I covered the plaster with tissue paper and Mod Podge. I'm hoping this will better replicate Moran's painting style. The colors came out a lot brighter that i thought they would, and I'm realizing the shape of the lips is still rough and uneven, but I'm hoping that working on the sky and sea will help with this. I think it will cover the unevenness and, using bright colors in the sky with a darker sea, will tie it all together. I'm thinking of using more tissue paper for the bright colors of the sky, with maybe some sun rays made out of clay. I might experiment with the paper cutting sculptures we did last year and see if that technique would work for the waves in the ocean.
(this week's picture is a real cool cat.) This week I'm working on my Reinterpretation project. I'm reinterpreting Thomas Moran's "Fiercely the red sun descending..." into a 3D sculpture. I'm planning on creating a mouth with the sun and sky spilling out of it. I've made the base of the lips with aluminum foil, scrap paper, and tape. Then I covered it in strips of plaster. Next week I'll work on sanding the plaster, and figuring out where I want to go next with my project. |
IMportant!This semester: all posts include a real cool dog! Archives
January 2019
Categories |