It's A Monotype Life!

In Printmaking, we started out by doing a value picture--I chose to do a female showgirl's head. It turned out absolutely awful. It was my first experience with doing any sort of printing, and coming in completely blind to what's going on often affects the outcome of your piece.

For the colored monotype, I picked something a bit more simple that I could stylize easily with color. The "Glass Bottle" monotype turned out great! I managed to get it done in one class period, with about 15 drops on the press.  I added a splatter background, and a tablecloth-esque pattern to the bottom 1/4 of the piece.

I had enough time to do another mono, so I went ahead and drew up another quick design. This second design took about 9 drops on the press, and it's by far my favorite!! I love the whimiscal appearance of the background. It looks like water, and there's always something new to look at when you're inspecting it.

Both pieces, "Glass Bottle" and "Fruit Spectacle"

Up, Up, and Away--Spring 2010 Semester!

Well, it's here. My last semester as a student! I can't wait to start student teaching in the fall. I'm still trying to decide where I want to do my student teaching, and once I figure it out, I will feel so much better!
This semester is going to be one full of hard work and lots of opportunities to flex my creative muscles!
I'm taking 27 hours this semester, which might seem like an excessive amount; however, I took 24 last semester, so it's not that much different.

The classes are as follows:

Graphic Design I-- this has nothign to do with computers really...it's all hand-made, and I think it will be a lot of fun. Thus far we've been assigned to make a paper hat and an advertisement for a product or PSA using some completely unrelated object (creating a metaphor). Both of mine turned out really splendid. I don't have any pictures, but I'll make sure to photograph my next project!

20th Century Art History--will be SIGNIFICANTLY better than last semester's art history course (Ancient Art History). This class coveres anything from 1900-1949. My favorite--expressionists!

Drawing--this is a 600-level course, independent-study-style with Mr. Craven. I get to choose my direction and take pretty much all creative freedom with my drawings. I'll be posting pictures of some of my work once it's underway.

Secondary School Experience--The only thing I'm excited for when it comes to this class is the 40 hours of shadowing an art teacher in one of the Hays Public Schools.

Sculpture I --Pretty much like Blacksmithing. Not my forte, as I wish I could be taking a jewelery class instead.

Educational Psychology--AWESOME. Love the teacher. She's full of spunk and always has us doing these up-and-outta-your-seat activities. Love it!

Printmaking--this is something I've never done before, and my first print was less-than-impressive. Once I get it down though, I think I'm really going to enjoy it. And the classroom smells extra clean, which is such a nice surprise for an art classroom!

Spanish II--NOT BY CHOICE! BY FORCE! No es buena!


I'm really looking forward to creating some really dynamite pieces to add to my portfolio this semester--but I'm even more excited about this semester being over and being one step closer to being an ART TEACHER!

Back Home On The Range

Tonight I was out wandering around the ole farm, and I was pleasantly surprised to find my camera in my pocket; thus, I took some pictures and of course made them all HIGH CONTRAST!
Enjoy!

Wheat

Sweet Feed

Alfalfa

Wheat

Night Horse

Horse Head

High Contrast: Dusty

The Two-Part Mold

One of the assignments in my Problems in Ceramics class was to create a two-part mold and use it to make a project. I chose to do a body casting.

To do this, vaseline is applied to the body and then 3 layers of medical-grade plaster strips are applied to the front, then the back of the person.

After they have set up, ceramic plaster is mixed and applied (about 1" thick) to the outside of both the front and back molds.

Ceramic Plaster takes about an hour to fully set, but I let mine set for a day or two in the dry booth.

To create the clay impressions, I rolled two flat slabs of clay out (so that they was large enough to cover the entire insides of the molds), and draped them over the insides of the molds. I then compressed them with metal and rubber ribs.  I placed both molds in the dry booth for a bit, took them out and covered them with plastic for about a week.

After they had been in the plastic tent, I took the clay molds out and scraped off all the plaster pieces to prevent plaster pop-offs. It was then that I realized the back mold had some problems--the medical-grade plaster had not set up correctly, thus the mold was very weak and unable to hold the weight of both the ceramic plaster and clay. I decided to throw it away and just use the front mold. Thus, I put the front mold in a paper tent for further drying.

Once it was thoroughly dried out, I engraved a body-image saying on the left chest with my metal tool. (Now that I look at the body, I wish I had not done this, as I don't really lke the way the writing looks....)

The body was then high fired.

After the high firing, I used underglazes to create a stain-like effect on the surface. It was then fired to Cone 04.

Here is the result:

Majolica

Majolica is something I wasn't particularly familiar with prior to this project and I wasn't interested in applying the majolica to any of my pieces simply because once this particular glaze-style is applied, the vessel is no longer functional; however, after this project was completed, I realized it's quite attractive if done right.

Now, the Maiolica piece is one of my favorites as I glance back at my corner full of pots. The bright green is an eye catcher. My Maiolica piece started out as a very basic plate. Once I did some research, I found an artist that I really enjoyed: Matthias Ostermann. His use of bright colors on a black Maiolica surface is really intense and appealing. Since I did not have a black Maiolica base at my disposal, I had to create the illusion of black Maiolica. I started by glazing the entire plate with the white Maiolica base. I then painted on the flower and leaf design. Once I had painted it all, I went in and filled all the white space in with black Maiolica paint. I then used a sgraffito method over the top of the flower and carved back through the glaze to reveal some of the white base glaze. I think the piece was really successful, and reflects my personality very accurately: loud, bright and a little bit different.

The "Woo Blue" Experience

Last semester, when I was first becoming really interested in ceramics, I would go into the glaze room and randomly choose a glaze, dip my pot in and fire it. I came across one glaze that made my pots look great--it hid imprefections and created this awesome variation of blues, browns and sometimes even purples. This semester, I have devoted about 90% of my glazing time to working with this magical glaze--Woo Blue Brown. I've been experimenting with how the colors change depending on how thick it is, where the pot is placed in the kiln during the firing and I also did some work with layering additional glazes both under and over the Woo Blue.

The following pictures are some of the most successful results I've had this semester:

This is a large soup bowl. To create the awesome variation in color, I added a Cone 10 Clear Liner glaze to the inside of the pot and swirling some additional Woo Blue Brown glaze on the inside to create more of the blue color--the thicker the glaze, the more variation in color.

This is a set of small soup bowls with Woo Blue Brown on them.

This is another soup set--the largest bowl does not have the Clear Liner, but I still achieved a great variation in color.

This is a soup bowl and plate on which I acheived the best overall blue color of the entire semester. There's very little brown on the two pieces except for the rims.

This is the brightest blue I achieved all semester--it's on the outside of a large serving platter.

This is the interior of a bowl. To create this color combination, I layered Clear Liner, Woo Blue and more Clear Liner.

The exterior of the same bowl as above. I layered Clear Liner with Woo Blue.

One of Life's Major Mysteries

This is a close-up of a quote I carved on the ceramic torso I made. I thought this was a pretty neat picture.

I initally thought the quote was about the desire to be with your perfect match--the person that makes you happy; but I think it's actually about how people are always striving to create a body that mimics that one look America seems to find "beautiful."  No one really knows what it is, but we're all wishing our bodies looked more like it.