Illustration Friday - Sparkle

Vessel Project

My inspiration photos are screenshots on my phone that will not add into this blog.

This piece can hold items which makes it fit into the category of vessel.

This piece turned out to be a success because the shape and details resemble those of a real bear.

I would have put more detail into the nose if I could because the flatness isn't like the round way that a real bear nose is like.

The idea came from my interest in bears but mainly a bear pattern that I saw and a pot that was the shape of a shark .

Pit Fire Part 2

I made this piece by a process called slab building. I rolled the clay out into flat pieces and cut them into identical sides. I slipped the sides together and then made a base. I let the piece dry out and then polished the sides.
Once the piece was bisqued, I painted the piece with red clay. After that dried, we prepped the pieces for the firing by putting flammable items onto the piece. I picked salt and pencils shavings.
This technique is so different from traditional firings because the outcome is unpredictable and really cool.
This was a successful piece and I would definitely do it again.

Pit Fire Part 1

A pit fire is a firing technique that fires pots with combustibles such as wood, leaves, metal oxides and salt.
Saggar firing is firing pottery in a confined space or isolated environment. A foil saggar would mean a saggar made out of aluminum foil.
These techniques are special because each piece will be unique and different. The isolated environment makes each piece come out with different colors and patterns.

I had only a few sketches for this project but they were all of coil pots which I drew before I decided to slab-build my piece.

Form Project

Mini-project with a magazine medium.

Relief Post: Part 2

This is my small tile project. This was the first mini project in the class and definitely helped me to learn some relief skills before embarking on my final relief project. I learned the necessary techniques and tools needed to make a clay relief project. My cardboard piece was a group piece and although seemed to come out successfully, did not help me to create my final project because it is a very different medium. 

Group Cardboard Relief project.

The picture on the left is my final project in progress. This was my clay piece once I had finished carving the piece. This was changed from the original because I wanted to have a rectangular piece but I decided on an ovalular piece because I thought it would add an interesting aspect to the piece. I found that I portrayed my original sketch well in this piece and I got good texture into the piece in the ground, trees, mountains and antlers. 

If I could change something it would be to fix the glazing paint. I found that painting with glaze and being able to mix colors very difficult. I also wish I could've added more detail to the elk. It is the main subject to the piece but seems somewhat dull.

I had to overcome the challenge of putting everything in perspective and painting with glaze which was pretty difficult for me. Getting the border even all around was also tough.

The final product came out awesome and I love the deep colors. I wish I hadn't added black to the mountains but I still like the outcome. 

Relief Post: Part 1

This is my plan for my relief project. My project will have a clearly defined background, middle ground and foreground and will feature an elk at the front. The mountains and the carved-out sky will be the foreground and the trees and the meadow will be the middle ground. I am not going to add any clay on top of what I carve out and this way it will be a true relief art piece. This will test my skills as an artist. My inspiration can be found at this link.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5Qtea0ClYEfY1F1S0hRallGaDA