Next layer

After I finished the chair I decided to lay in the background for the animals.  I used a black background to make the colors of the animals stand out more.  I may rethink that later.

I put the finials on to test, and decided I needed more wood putty.  Sanded area, glued finials, added more wood putty.

This weekend I'll sand again, repaint the purple and start working on the designs again.  It's a process, right?
 

Base Coat

So after a week of work, here is the chair with the base coat on it.  I painted the inside of the back area with the darker purple that is in the fabric, and the chair surface in the lighter color.  

I built up the top of the corners in the back with wood putty to support two ceramic finials I made in the studio.  

Going to have to go back and sand them down and repaint, because they didn't sand down as smoothly as necessary.

After that, it's on to the fun part, painting on the critters.

 

Starting my chair

This week I started on my chair for the Chairitable Event to be held at the Chandler Center for the Arts on March 15.  

There are 50 chairs and tables that have been given to local artists to embellish and contribute toward an auction.  Proceeds will benefit Children's and other art programs in the City.  

Below is a piece of fabric I'm basing my design theme on.  It is Guatamalan, and I love it!

Tomorrow you'll see the base coat on the chair.

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.