What Fun

Due to the nature of ceramics – the amount of equipment needed, weight of the materials, and utilitarian roots, it is very often done in group settings… much more so than other fine arts such as painting. My Mom claims that in the art groups she belongs to, the potters are the best at organizing things, since they used to working in group structures, and seem to enjoy it. So, as wonderful as it is to have my own kiln, etc, I do miss working in groups (like I did before I had my own stuff) and the creative power that comes from a bunch of fun people. This is an easy thing to fix: I invited a bunch of friends over on Monday’s in May, and we made masks. What fun!

The masks all came out quite wonderful, check the photo site to see each one. Everyone has promised to give their pieces names (however, I didn’t seem to have the right combination of wine and writing utensils to actually get them all… so if you don’t have a name, send me one!).

And I will do it again – for me as much as for everyone – after the hot days of summer are behind us.

Mixed Media

One of my endeavors during sabbatical was taking a mixed media art class at the Desert Botanical Gardens.  They have a very serious botanical illustration program, with drawing, pen and ink, and watercolor classes.  Mixed Media was a new class, to combine pen and ink with watercolor.  The instructor was intending this as an advanced class, expecting the students to have taken the pen and ink and water color classes as prerequisites.  She was a bit unprepared when most of us in the class had little if any experience.  Fortunately, she quickly switched gears, and did a great job …  in the end, everyone had some very nice pieces. Her background was doing medical illustration, and she patiently taught us how to dip our pens, draw a line, as well has how to use watercolors.  However, She did not have any patience for non-artist quality materials, and started us with a pricey list of materials.  I have now fallen for sable brushes, and today figured they how well they work well for doing a little oxide line work on my pots!

We started the class by copying some Beatrice Potter illustrations from “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny”, as she used a mix of ink and watercolor.  We tried ink first, then watercolor, and then the other way. We also tried different inks, including one made from walnut shells.   Either way, you start with a pencil drawing (which we traced) that is transferred to the watercolor paper.  For the watercolors, she taught us how to mix colors, we started with 2 reds, 2 yellows, and 2 blues. A good reference book is  “Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green” (hint, hint Christmas is coming).  The hardest color to mix was the grays. For the final project, I composed a picture of five different basils that I have in my herb garden (sweet basil, lemon basil, variegated basil, a purple basil, and Blue African basil).  I did cheat a bit, I shot pictures of each, cut out the background (so I also learned a lot about Photoshop), then did some tracing to get the basic shapes and perspective.  My biggest problem with getting big drops of ink on the paper, fortunately, the teacher had some watercolor whiteout (Creative Mark Aquacover) which did a good job of covering them up!   Here are pictures of my pieces.  I also did one of a yucca, hoping to get one without an ink blog (but not successful).

I’m really glad I took the class, I have a much better feeling for a few more more techniques, I might get to the point someday where my drawings have some level of accuracy(!), and have found that good watercolors are really pretty fun to use.  I was really surprised how quick you can get the colors down, but found that just like pottery, there are times you just have to stop, to let things dry out properly… because it can go bad very, very quickly.   Now to just get my studio arranged to support both pots and paints!

September Firing..

Here’s the latest from the kiln (this link should now be fixed... sorry to the subscribers getting a duplicate email).    My favorite of the bunch was done by my niece, it’s a platter with a drawing of her dog Chester.   The favorite of my work is the face with red eyes…  a self portrait before vacation and sabbatical!

Let me know what you like… I need to make room for more stuff.

Little people and other creatures

Little by little I will eventually get all my pictures up on the web.  This set is my little people (click here to look), which I think of as doodles in clay.  I usually use a left over chunk of clay, make a couple of slices to get the legs and arms started, and then just work it until it looks like something.   It’s not too unusual for them to crack during firing (and then they typically end up in a pot with some plants).   There are a few in here (like the Airedale) which are slab built.  I have done many lizards this way…  my next group of photo’s will be lizards, so stay tuned.

I can’t say I am happy with these photo’s, I think that what worked a few months ago (shooting the pictures outside in the shade) is not working with the summer sun, especially with shiny glazes.   It was interesting to notice that most all them have their legs crossed the same direction (something I never noticed until I was sorting through bad pictures, and using positions of legs and arms to figure out which was which).   I’m open to suggestions on getting better pictures. 
Let me know what you like!

Results from May’s Glaze firing…

The most exciting thing about pottery is unloading the kiln after a glaze firing.  I have been making some masks based on a consignment order from my in-laws for their new back-yard..  (its very private, so they needed a few faces staring back at them ).  This opening definitely had some mixed results.  I liked all the pieces, but I really didn’t expect the cracks in most of the masks.  Oh well, I think the cracks like wrinkles… it gives some character, but we will have some mixed feelings.  Notice the face that Bridget did does not have any cracks… ah, to be a kid again!   Here are the pictures:  http://photos.firecooked.com/GalleryThumbnails.aspx?gallery=20976

There is also a very nice, very purple bowl (do you like purple,,, it can be yours!), and one pretty cool vessel (one with some attitude), and another that looks good in the herb garden (maybe it will need to find a permanent home there…)

There was one more vase in the firing, which is back in the kiln now… I am trying to slump some glass on it.  Also trying to decide if this is the fate of “Ghostly”… I originally planned to add some glass as well, but liked it too much to do an experiment.

Let me know what you think... if there is something you like, let me know!

Faces!

I have made some progress on photographing more of my pots, and now have all of my masks posted on the web.  There are 30 in all (not counting the ones that just came out of the kiln).    Masks are one of the most fun things to make. I do 2 different styles.  One is very quick, where slabs of clay (often with some texture added with shoe treads or dollies) is placed over a plastic pillow of some sort (generally an old clay bag filled with packing peanuts), then eyes, ears,  and/or noses formed.  Then various appendages, such as eyebrows, tongues, or horns can be added.  That’s it.  Examples are the Elephant face, and most of the animals.  The other style is a bit more deliberate.  You start with 2 slabs of clay, roughly the same size and shape.   One piece is the back, they you build up “bones” in face with additional pieces of clay.  The top (front) piece is laid on top, and sealed on the edges.   The clay is press on and around the “bones” to form a face.  Examples are Firecooked and the Kiln Goddesses.

I started making masks in Auburn.  My real inspiration was Gillian Hodge, an artist that lived in Penn Valley (another small town in the foothills of the Sierra’s).  In addition to pottery, she also painted..  and overall had a very fascinating life.  She occasionally taught workshops, and I was fortunate enough to take the mask making class, as we well as a workshop on doing travel sketches.

Let me know which one(s) you like!    Next I will try to get photographs of my little people, hopefully that won’t take another 4 months.

Vases and Vessels

Hopefully everyone has had a chance to look at the pictures of my pottery, and probably wondering “what the hec is the difference between a vase and a vessel?”  The short answer to the question is that you would put flowers in a vase, but not in a vessel. The long answer is an ongoing debate in the pottery world between craft and art… and I’m not ready to go there!  Where I would rather go do is go on about a couple of my favorite pieces (ones that I couldn’t part with)…   On the vases page, my absolute favorite is the wood fired vase.  It’s small, about 8 inches.  The red is a shino glaze, and the green is the ash from the firing, which has turned into glaze.  It was fired on its side… the white spots are from where it sat.  This pot has memories for me of people and place… doing a wood fire takes about 3 cords of wood (and 3 days of continuous stoking of a kiln).  I was fortunate to be able to contribute wood for the cause (this is from when we lived in Auburn, and lived on 3 wooded acres) and not have to stay up all night firing the kiln.  One of my favorite vessels is the Raku Girl.  Doing Raku firing is another group pyromaniac event.  You take the piece while red hot out of a kiln and drop it into a trashcan full of newspapers or some other combustible material, then put the lid on for  soldering fire (which results in a reducing atmosphere…you can thank me for not going into the chemistry explanation, but sometime in my life I would like to teach a combined art and chemistry class to high school students!).  After 30 minutes or so, you pull it out, rinse it off, and hope you have something cool.  Raku Girl is heavy, I suspect I had help because its hard to move something red hot with tongs.  Of my newer stuff (and something from my less than pyrotechnic electric kiln), Monkey Face is my favorites.  It was one that you really didn’t know how it would look until you were done. In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether you put flowers in the pot or not.