Day seven

Looking at ceramic artists:

  Karen Morgan - she develops the form first and then decides how it can be made into a functional piece, whilst maintaining the origianal sculptural form.  Very tactile. gentle, flowing - have a softness to them.
Niisato Akio - works with porcelain and drills each hole into the walls of the vessels - these are then glazed, creating 'windows'.  The play of light is very important to Niisato and he considers the vessels are make to 'hold the light'.
  John Ffrench - fabulous vibrant colours and remarkable shapes and form.  Developed a hand built technique that is an integral part of the pieces - the texture is adds gives another dimension to the colours.

Day Eight

Raku pieces

Small and large folded pieces that were dipped into the resist slip and then the turquoise glaze, before being fired and then placed in woodshavings.

The thrown bowl and the flowing piece after they were dipped into the clear glaze and then fired.

 

 

 

This curls piece was dipped in the turquoise glaze and raku fired.

 

This coil was dipped in the white glaze and fired in the raku kiln.

(unfortunately a bit broke of it before dipping in the glaze!)

 



Day nine

All my pieces laid out on desk, presented for assessment.



Day five





Decorated my thrown bowl with underglaze.  It is important that the bowl is slightly wet, so it has to be dipped in water, prior to applying the underglaze.

The under glaze is best applied in layers that are built up rather than a thick coat.







Day six - glazing and raku firing



Dipping the bowl into the clear glaze - the bowl is put into the glaze in a circular sweep movement, removed and then held over the bucket for a moment to get rid of any drips.  The bowl is then held up for a few moments, any drips will collect on the edge and this can be removed by dabbing with finger.

Raku Firing

The kiln is gas fired and insulated - it has to reach a temperature of 1000 degrees for firing.  After firing the pieces are removed and placed immediately into wood shavings (in a bin) where they are left for 30 mins at least - it is here that the smoke seaps into the cracks in the glaze and patterns the piece.

This is my piece which was first dipped into the resist slip, left to dry and then dipped into the glaze - I applied glaze to a level slightly below the level of the resist slip as this gives a better finish.  After this process it was placed into the kiln and then into the shavings.  

How it looked after taking it out of shavings                        

 How it looked after cleaning off glaze.

Had a series of curves which I piled on top of each other - quite interesting.  Kieran then sliced each surface with chesse wire resulting in a neat finish.

Day Three - researched some ceramic artists-

Pat O Connor - mainly figurative work - seperate pieces that are mainly thrown and then joined - combining to make the finished piece.

 

Felicity Straker Graham works in porcelain - fascinated in the way porcelain comes to life as you hold it up to the light.

Explored the form and patterns of the claywork by mark making with indian ink and bamboo pen, brushes, cut card, string, wire ball etc.

Day four - did some more work with pressing curves into a form and also constructed some coils with sausages of clay - joined them together and then rolled over the entire piece with a rolling pin in different directions and then pressed a board down onto it.

Day Five - watched a dvd on Annie Turner, a ceramic artists.  Annie uses as inspiration the waterland that surrounds where she spent her childhood in Suffolk.  Collect objects along the waterline to create texture in her pieces.  They are triggers for the memory and her work reveals how she interprets her surroundings.

 

Made a vessel out of slab of clay, rolled out with top edge narrowed by rubbing through a cloth.  Stood the slab upright in a coil shape onto base using slip.

First of my three electives - Ceramics

Day one - working with the clay and getting a feel for it - 

seeing what evolves from manipulating it.

exploring coils, curves and folds with the clay.

Day two - throwing a pot

 

Preparations for assessment - display on desk

Slideshow I put together of all the different kaleidoscope views and effects I have been exploring.

 

Made a series of kaleidoscopes using clear acrylic sheets and cardboard tubes. Cut acrylic strips into different widths to get a variety of effects as you view through the kaleidoscopes - triangles, squares, star shape, twisted squares.

 Some of the effects achieved by placing different width of strips in varying shapes inside the tubes. 

 

In relation to presentation in January, decided to arrange the tubes as an upright structure on a ceramic base. (as previously explored - simple structures that alter a given space). Formed the base into an organic, natural shape and painted it - decided on this to balance the geometric views through the kaleidoscopes and uniformity of circular tubes. 

Again, considering the presentation I selected some of the images of the work I have done since September and decided to display them in a fan like arrangement - (multi faceted, as previously investigated).