Forced hiatus

No art for a week!  Finally finished my road trip and will begin setting up my studio on Monday.  Very excited.

I love doodling.

Just for fun...

lovely ladies and dashing gentlemen.

Ceramics

Well, I'm certainly no great potter, but I'd like to share a couple of recent things I've done.  First off is a few porcelain plates with green and black engobe that actually came out fairly well.  I just love porcelain.  I was thinking about marbling paper and the icing on Napoleons when I came up with this design.

Next up is my favorite bowl, also in porcelain. One of the few times that I am satisfied with my glazing choices!  I worked the overlap of the clear glaze and toshiko black quite well, if I do say so myself.  The bowl has a nice solid feel to it, but it's not clunky.  Let me say one more time that i LOVE porcelain.

Finally, here's what happens when you use glazes on dark brown clay that have only been tested on aforementioned beloved porcelain.  It was supposed to be turquoise on top and clear on the bottom.  I was really hoping that the clear glaze would enhance the beautiful deep reddish brown color of the clay body, but instead it turned out to be a somewhat nauseating green!  The turquoise is...well... red!  I do like the form of these mugs, though, so at least I have that.  The overall effect is almost frightening, isn't it?

It was quite strange switching to Laguna Dark Brown clay body, which has a bit more grog and less plasticity than I was used to.  Throwing it was rougher on the hands and felt like it took more earth-moving power than porcelain, which is smooth and plastic.  While it leaves room for disaster, when you have the right amount of control over it, porcelain can do exactly what you want.  It's white color is also a good base for glazes, which tend to be a tad more predicable on it.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to continue on with this work after I move.  I'm certainly still learning a lot each time i throw, and tons more when I glaze.  I'd like to look into getting a glaze recipe book with information on glazing dark clay bodies.

The big move

Buying a home, packing, and coming down with a really debilitating case of the flu has left very little time for my art.  Still slowly plunking away at my circle series, although I must confess that I've barely worked on it.  I had been listening to an audiobook of the Odyssey while working on one of the pieces, and now that it's over I feel oddly unmotivated.  Something about the ancient adventure epic poem thing was very fitting during the process.  Maybe I'll just have to get the Iliad now.

The place that I'm moving into has an office space that will work wonderfully as a studio, and I greatly look forward to building some big canvases and getting my oil painting on.  I'm a little concerned about fumes, as the room is basically attached to my bedroom, but hopefully i'll figure something out.  Maybe I'll use the second bedroom in the meantime until I find a renter.

After I get somewhat settled and begin working more or less full time again, I'm going to investigate local galleries.  I'll certainly update on that front should anything good happen.

On a final note, I had been taking a life drawing and ceramics class for fun while I've been in LA, and am incredibly sad to end that.  I would very much like to continue working with clay, and will certainly investigate my options on the east coast.  I have always loved ceramics, although I think I tend to treat it more as a craft than art, which is fine by me.  Just because something isn't based on lofty ideals doesn't mean that it's not beautiful, useful, or worthwhile.  God, I love the feel of clay.