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!
