African inspired

I have some antique african cloth that I just love, and became inspired to recreate the feel of those designs on some of my ceramics.  

I made these cups last week and painted on some designs in underglaze.  After they are fired, I'm going to glaze with this flat black in our studio that I really like.  It's called "skillet".  

I'll show a picture when I get them done.  

Ready for the kiln

I finished underglazing the leaves, then bisque fired my lady.  Then I waxed each leaf, sprayed the whole mask with glaze, and wiped the glaze off each waxed leaf.

What a royal pain that was!!!  

Now she's peacefully waiting for her kiln firing after the 1st of the year.  Really excited to see how she turns out.

Now she needs a name!

 

Atomica Ceramica in progress

I know this is somewhat hard to see, but I wanted to show you the mask I'm working on for a show in March called "Atomica Ceramica".  You're supposed to do something in clay that you've never done before:  something new to you as an artist.

I've never done a mask.  Have never even been "into" them very much.  Never done any human likeness type sculptures.  So here we go.

This is still greenware, i.e. never been fired.  It's been challenging in another way as well.  The glaze I want to use looks best over Coleman porcelain.  Coleman isn't particularly engineered for handbuilding.  It's better for throwing on the wheel.  It wants to crack, dries pretty quickly and doesn't like to be attached to anything. 
But fingers crossed, so far so good.  Now I have to start working on my chair for the Chairitable event which is in March too.  I'll post progress on that next.  

Great stuff for Christmas

The Artist's Cooperative Store at Mesa Art Center is a great place to shop for unique, one of a kind Christmas gifts.

Prices range from just a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.  There's a table devoted to just holiday stuff, seen in this picture, jewelry, ceramics, fabric art, beautiful glass, basketry, acrylic and watercolor paintings, and all of it original work by the artist/members.

The store is open Tuesday through Sunday, and well worth a visit.  Next Saturday and Sunday they're doing free gift wrapping.  The store's at Center and Main in Mesa.  Come by and see.