I try to submit my stuff to different galleries and/or shows from time to time, just to get my name out there. (And maybe sell a piece or two).
I recently submitted this to the Herberger in downtown Phoenix for their summer show, and just got notice yesterday that it was accepted!
My ceramic buddies may recognize this guy. He did a workshop in Mesa back a few months ago.
So, today I'm feeling pretty good about myself. The sound you're hearing is me, patting myself on the back.
I was thinking of the composition for another bench I may be doing, and wanted to use a combination of the tiles that came out of the kiln this week. And I was trying to think of a neat accent that would be painted instead of the textural feel that the other tiles have.
So I think I might use hummingbirds. Aren't these little guys cute?
They haven't been fired yet, so we'll see how my paint job turns out after firing, but I just might be on to something, here.
I've been working on a watercolor for a client who wanted to incorporate three white roses from her garden into a painting.
She wanted other flowers and leaves in it, as if they were still growing on the bush. She didn't want the black background like I did in my last set of flowers.
So the challenge was to create a composition with these elements.
I finished last night. I see a few spots here and there that need a little touching up, but for the most part, I think we're done here.
What do you think?
This was a piece that Ted let me have to embellish. I did several colors of underglaze that blended into each other, with black shapes painted over the color.
I expected bright and beautiful. What I got was dark and muddy.
My guess is that the clear glaze was the factor. Evidently in using a clear glaze in a high-fire, it should be one without zinc in it, because that can affect the colors in the final outcome. It did. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Lesson learned.
Last time I glazed these particular tiles, I was very unhappy with the plain, muddy results. Well, I made some more tiles to try with different glazes. I not only wanted to have more interesting colors, I wanted to simplify the process. So, I chose three glazes: temmoku, celadon, and California red, then blew a little Oribe on them with my mouth sprayer. The results were much, much better. What do you think?
I also had some success with another test: I put some rutile wash over temmoku. I was attempting to get a gold pattern over the temmoku. All of the pieces turned out well, but ran a lot. So I could only save two. You can see those below.
Pretty cool, huh?
Did some more work on the painting this week. I should have all of the major elements in by the end of next week, then I go for corrections and refinements.
See how that background sinks down into the center of the picture? As I continue to work with the main focus, the flowers, it will continue to do so.
What do you think of it so far?
I've had some time to work on the three roses painting. I decided to create a distant background in the center to draw the eye in. Believe it or not, this will look like gravel on the ground when the painting is finished.
I've worked on it a bit more here, adding more gravel and continuing to slowly define forms and background.
And yesterday I only had about an hour to work, so I tackled the upper left rose and the surrounding area. Each layer adds more depth to the composition, doncha think?
