My Final Piece.

 

This is my resolved piece for the Drawing, Design, Translation project.

 

Really not a fan of the blue glaze; it's far too bright. I thought I would come out much paler and subtle. However, the ginger inside has a nice textured effect.

I think brushing the glaze worked well for this piece because it links back to the painterly feel of my drawings, but I'll probably be spraying in future!!

 

For the next project, I want to abstract the form so it's less 'house'-y but also give it a more personal touch, concerning whoever's 'house' it is.

 

 





Glazed Samples.

My samples fiiiiiiiiiiinally came out of the kiln but getting them back was a bit of a shock!!

 

I am well aware of the fact that they are horrifically ugly (!!), but I did this quite on purpose. I applied every glaze I had made to each piece to see how it worked next to other glazes, how it looked on a 3D piece and how it reacted on a larger scale. This made it easier to rule out which glazes I don't like and which ones don't work well together. (Also, that I need to work on my glaze brushing skills!!)

 

 



Drawings

Here's a couple of pages from my first sketchbook. These were initial drawings from my inspirations:

 

 

The aim was to explore a variety of drawing techniques, styles and materials.

Final Piece Planning.

 

So after trying lots of different things and making loads of samples and maquettes, I've started making my final piece...

These line drawings are my inspiration. They are drawings of my housemates' family homes that I then try to re-create, having never been there.

 

 

This is the maquette of my final piece...

 

 

... translated into thick slabs of Porcelain.

 

I chose to glaze the outside and inside two different colours so that viewers would want to look inside the piece. This will be coming out of the kiln tomorrow (finger's crossed!!) so I don't have any photos yet, but these are the colours I'm hoping it will come out like...

 

Outside: Emmanuel Cooper 'Bright Turquoise Glaze' (#392)

 

 

Inside: Emmanuel Cooper 'Shiny Ginger Glaze' (#398)

 

 

Drawing, Design, Translation.

Can't believe how busy third year is!! I literally haven't had time to update anything on here until now.

 

So I've been doing a project called Drawing, Design, Translation... Pretty much what it says on the tin. My deadline is next week Thursday and I've got to say, for once, I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic!! All of my samples and my final piece went into a glaze firing on Friday so they'll be out tomorrow and I CANNOT wait to see them.

 

Until I get photos of them, here's a quick update of what I've been making in the past 6 weeks:

 

The glaze samples came out!! The top row are oxidation and the bottom row are reduction fired.

 

Maquette making.

 

 

Adding the 'cauliflower' decoration. I liked this but feel it makes the pieces too 'pretty'. I don't want it to look like moss growing on a house.

Display Cabinet.

My studio at uni has changed rooms this year so I don't walk through the way I used to. However, I went past today, and realised that some of my work from the Exhibition Project last year has been put in a display cabinet... Lovely surprise!!

 

Starting Third Year!!

Crikey it's been a while!!

Finally moved back up to Leicester and started third year (!!!) so I've spent the past few weeks settling in and getting back into a routine.

 

My first project is called 'Drawing, Design Translation' and I'm using the photos from my visits abroad over summer as inspiration. I'm mainly looking at architechture for form, but I'm carrying on with my slabbing and hope to incorporate some aspect of maps into it.

 

I've got so many ideas buzzing around in my head at the moment but only 3 and a half weeks to produce all of them!! Arghhh I can just tell this is going to be a very hectic year. However, I've become good at getting up early and staying at uni from 9 to 5 and feel I'm achieving quite a lot... We shall see!!

 

In the past week I've made 65 test tiles, 6 small samples, 4 thrown pots, 1 mould and 9 new glazes; a good start!!

  



Glaze tests.

 

Hopefully I'll be doing more regular updates now that I'm back into the swing of things!!

 

Work Experience with Alice Walton

Over the summer I managed to get a bit of work experience with local ceramic artist, Alice Walton.

 

I learnt a lot during the time I spent helping her. She taught me basic skills such as how to pull handles, pack, set and fire a kiln and reclaim and properly wedge clay, as well as showing me how to make and decorate some of her products. I learnt how to properly press-mold objects, which I really enjoyed, and used an extruder for the first time!! I did a lot of glaze tests for her and this involved applying some to raw clay. I've never done this before but it seemed to work and it saves a lot of time because you don't need as many firings. We even tried to take apart an old kiln which was really interesting.

 

Overall, the whole experience was great. I learnt so much and got a lot of advice. It also made things seem a lot more achieveable (in terms of becoming self-employed), as it wasn't an option that I'd really, truely considered.

 

Take a look at her lovely work:

http://www.alicewaltonceramics.co.uk/index.htm 

http://www.alicewalton.blogspot.co.uk/

Finland

My final trip before I go back to uni was Finland. I'm half Finnish, so I went over with my mum to visit family and friends.

 

The architecture and landscape is very different, which I found incredibly inspiring.

 

I also visited a few museums, including Arabia Center, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Design Museo and Design Forum Shop.

 

 

 

Zagreb

Next on my summer schedule was a holiday with my boyfriend to Zagreb, Croatia.

 

I visited a lot of museums to gather some research for my summer project, including The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Marton Museum, The Mimara Museum, The Museum of Arts and Crafts and The Museum of Broken Relationships (great one to go to with your boyfriend, huh?!).

 



 

 

 

Budapest and Novi Sad

 

So 2nd year came to an end and I moved back to Brighton for the summer!!

 

I had a very busy summer planned and the first stop was Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. We flew into Budapest, Hungary and spent two nights either side of the festival there.

 

Everyone should go to Hungary and Serbia. They are amazing (and cheap!!) places with lovely people and incredible food!!

 

I took some photos to use as colour inspirations and research for my summer project:

 

 

Sainsbury's!!

 

Just before going back to Brighton for summer, I found out that our meeting with the Sainsbury's design team had been organised!!

 

Although I didn't get the placement in the end, it was an excellent day. We got a tour around the Sainsbury's headquarters in Coventry, which included the area that the design team work in and their mock-shops.

 

After that, we had 10 minute slots to present to a team of about 5 people from the home-ware design team. It was pretty daunting and I think nerves got the better of me because I really didn't know what to expect, but it was such a good experience.

 

I'd never even considered working as a designer for a big company but it really opened my eyes and I will definitely look into it when I graduate.

 

These are two of the four boards that I presented, along with 4 sketchbooks and some of the samples from the 'Competition Project':

 

Artisan Exhibition. April 25-28th 2012.

 

Before I knew it, it was time for our exhibition.

 

It was called 'Artisan' and was held at Fabrika in Leicester city centre, between the 25th and 28th of April 2012.

This was the first proper exhibition that I've been part of and it was very exciting!! Seeing people take photos of your work and ask you about it is the best feeling. Definitely worth the stress!!

 

Here's a photo of the exhibition and my stand:

 

 

Not only was it a very satisfying end to the year, but also an invaluable experience that should set us up nicely for organising our degree show!!

 

Here's some close-ups of my favourite pieces:

 

Exhibition Project Continued...

Once knew what I was doing and had sorted out my glazes, I could finally start making. And what a pain in the backside the making was...!!

 

 

These were easy enough (I say easy - if anyone works with porcelain, you will know how easily it cracks and how frustrating it can be!!)...

 

 

But these two were a complete and utter nightmare. After days of reparing, drying, spraying, cracking and bucket loads of tears, they both broke due to the pressure on the joins.

I was devastated but I was able to make each one into 2 seperate pieces, so it turned out alright in the end.

 

 

Once they were fired I sanded them with wet and dry sandpaper and then, sprayed on my glaze and fired them again up to 1260°c. One touched another piece in the kiln so has two little marks on it, and another one cracked, but otherwise I'm really pleased with how they came out.

 

 

I felt they looked a little plain as a set so I added some Pâte de Verre to my favourite pieces to represent the rivers on the map...

 

 

... and was absolutely ecstatic with how they came out!!

 

 

Pâte de Verre'd wall maps with their 3D counterpieces.