Narrative Project

My origional ideas for this project were a bit all over the place. I had planned on doing a sculpture of two hands [as the sky-view of venice looks like two hands about to clasps eachother] but, no matter how i approached it, the angles and shapes- to get it to depict an apt representaion of the shape of the island, just didn't work out.

I then had the idea of Venetian masks and came up with a plan to creat loads of different masks, the Capitano, The Bauta etc and have them faling apart in some way- shattering or crumbling (in a way to depict how masks in Venice origionally came about in a plea for nortoriety and how they were then abolished by law from the city) b

But, alas, this too failed as an idea, i think i was just getting to ahead of myself.

I eventually decided that i should just stick to a surface design this time round as i had'nt properly thought through a good enough abstratct or scultptural piece.

 

                                                      

So for the narrative i based my design on a desing from the walls of St. Marks Cathedral in Venice. I planned to monoprint the design on and then after the bisque firing i hoped to paint on a watercoloury image of a gondola with the backdrop of the ocean and city of Venice.

                               
                               Something like this sort of image           St. Mark's Cathedral

                                                     
Monoprinting:

I then instead decided as i wouldn't have enought time to paint then glaze the pieces that i would just do a turqoise raku on them- which  i had already beeen planning on doing with one of my bowls, that way it would also look like the pieces were part of a collection too  so it worked out. One of two plain round plates i made broke in firing but with the other iw as able to create a landsape using both turqoise an transparent glazes for the racu. It's probably my favourite piece.

My bowl too came out well, decorated with the designs inspired from the two-tone gondola poles you find in Venice.

And here's my finished pieced before and after the racu!

hooray!

Elain Shows Us How To MakePaper Clay

                                                       One of Elaines own pieces.

                                          You will need: Tissue, buckets, a jug, some molds, porcelain and some muslin.

 Mix the dried porcelain chips in with water .

In the other bucket you should have ripped up pieces of paper that have ben soaking in water over night. Usin the msulin you then drain them- not completely however. You then add it to the clay bucket which will make hopefully then after stirring have a porridge like consistancy.

You then spread the paper clay onto the mold in gradual layers. It dries relatively quickly so if you wanted you could even add a black clay colour over the first layer to create a monotone effect.

Elaine then lay out the semi-rigid clay and using a ruler slowly folded up it's sides enabling her to make a building out of it... the sides are then stuck together using some moist paperclay as a slip.

Heads Project!

Artist Christ Keeney-who is a graduate of L.S.A.D came in this week to teach us how to make ceramic heads.

                                          
                                                      Irish Ceramacist Christy Keeney

                                                        
                                                                 One of Christy's heads.


Hmmm... i did enjoy this project alot, although now, looking around at everyone elses pieces i'm a bit bummed out at how mine has turned out. I guess i wasn't really aware of how broad the project could be. I took it too literally and wasn't really able to experiment and explore how abstract and unique the project could be.
 Yes, i will admit i did a pretty accurate SURFACE representation of a late 50's male human head, but the way in which Christy taught us how to construct the head added some extra frustration considering the awkward shape my head then had.
However, painting it was fun and i'm pleased with the result, but if i could do it over again i think i'd look at and take on the project a whole lot differently.

I was happy with the end piece and i think the painting i did really helped bring out the realistic qualities of the whole thing.

Narrative Project

This week was all about exploring our individual options in the formof a project based on a Narrative-i.e. the title of a book, a lie, a joke etc..
It was up to us to explore this in depth and come to a final plan for the following 4 weeks of work.
Having been to Venice and having one of my main contextual artists from the previous semesters, Dale Chihuly who worked on an Island off of it, i though it would be a good place to begin.

                                                                                  Chihuly in front of on of his pieces

So, i knew i wanted to do something surrounding the idea of Venice and luck for me, I had also read
Shakespear's 'The Merchant of Venice' in school, so it would be the perfect place to get a good quote, and i chose;
                                                   ''All of my riches are at sea''

Ceramics Week 1- Pot Vessel Object

We were given the brief to explore the breadth of ceramics and what we understood from the terms 'pot' 'vessel' and 'object'
My group and i divided our tasks into certain areas and then went and did research.
My task was to research the earliest forms of ceramics and hence learnced alot i didn't know before. My main research surrounded 'The Venus of Dolini'-See Fig.1- (a ceramic statue dated as far back as 25, 000 BC) Ancient Aurignacian Figurines of animals-See Fig.2- (dated back to 30,000 BC) Yuchanyan Cave Pottery See Fig.3- (shards of pots fouund in China dated as far back as 17,500 BC) and Ancient Jomon Pottery See Fig.4- (found in Japan and characterised by the rope techniques they used, dated circa 10,000 BC)

                                                          Fig.1 The Venus of Dolini

                                            
                                                  Fig.2 Ancient Aurignacian Figurines

                                                        Fig. 3 Yuchanyan Pottery

Fig.4 Ancient Jomon Pottery