An Ode to Spring!

Make some FLOWERS!

This is quite pointless, but completely beautiful and fun!

Line up!

One of the teachers in my Graphic Design class showed us this link. This is pretty fun, and you can learn a bit more about alignment and do some cool layouts. I made a cool layout, did a screen capture, copied and pasted it to a Paint document and cropped it. I then printed it off to fill a whole page, and now I have some cool stationary!

Enjoy!
Alignment Activity

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.