etsy

I finally plucked up the courage to open an etsy store last week! Its a bit scary but very exciting, especially seeing as I sold my first pot yesterday after it being up for just a few hours! Its going all the way to California!

Do visit!

I'm selling some small experimental pieces from this year to see how they go, fingers crossed.

group hug!

because I love this shot.

credit

Its nice to get a bit of credit for your work sometimes, especially on a piece that was quite time consuming. One set of pots I made this year have brought me a nice little bit of success.
A lovely far away friend saw this photo on Flickr and asked to buy it which was very nice. Then my teacher asked me to enter it into a local art competition in the Gold Coast show and it won 3rd prize in its class! And then my college celebrated it on their website! And then the Dean of my college commissioned me to make a set for the college collection! Before all of these lovely things happened, a photography student took some wonderful shots of my work including this particular set, one of which was sent to this magazine and was published as part of a ceramics educational survey!

Thats a lot of positive feedback from one little set of pots!

sculpture (nightmare!)

Our last 3 units of the year were sculpture based. They were hard. I've never liked sculpture much as it isn't functional, it just sits there, getting dirty (and I hate cleaning). I shan't show you pictures from the first 2 units as they're a bit terrible, however I am extremely pleased with my final effort of the year. I was inspired by the very clever Wladyslaw Garnik to make forms with very delicate slip trailed panels of clay.

pre firing

lit with a string of mini xmas lights. thanks big w!

more photos to come of this one, hopefully!

tableware

Here are just a few photos of the tableware unit...I have a lovely photographer friend editing some much better images for me!

altered forms

Making slip cast and hand thrown forms, then cutting and rejoining them to create unique designs.

term 3 - painting

Our third term saw us completing some painting units. Most students worked with acrylics/oils but I stuck with my ceramics, treating these plates as 'canvases'.

Artist Statement -
This work is loosely inspired by the children’s’ book ‘The Door in the Air’ by Margaret Mahy. For this concept I created some illustrations that I wanted to transfer onto ceramics. The key characters throughout these 3 illustrations are a young trapeze artist and an enchanted prince. For me, the girl in the story represents our desires for freedom, whereas the boy symbolises captivity. The prince needed the circus girl to rescue him; as we all need to be at some time in our lives.

As with much of my work, I was influenced by the style of Gustav Klimt. I have recently been admiring his lithograph designs, as the bold, clear art nouveau lines are simply beautiful. The element in my current work that reflects this is my female characters’ hair; over sized, organic shaped masses of swirling lines.

End of term validation display, including acrylic abstracts, a watercolour landscape, masks inspired by various artists and ceramic canvases.

Third time lucky

Having finished college for the year last week, I'm feeling the need to maintain my creative motivation and I think blogging might just be it. I keep saying to people that there is a list of things I want to do this summer and plan for next year, but I can easily see that falling by the wayside. So here I am, again.

I'll begin with a brief (ish) catch up on the last 6 month's work.

Slip cast stoneware vases with coloured relief work decoration. Clear glaze inside.

Slab built stoneware vase with underglaze and gold lustre decoration.

Slab built stoneware bowl with underglaze and gold lustre decoration.
Slip cast stoneware bowls with underglaze decoration.

it just wasn't meant to be

I'm afraid I'm not cut out for this blogging business...I'm too much about the photos and not enough about the words, so if you still want me, go here x

slip cast vases

Yesterday we made some slip cast vases and today they were dry enough to decorate. I'm a bit crazy over this relief work technique so spent 3 and a half hours doing this pair this morning...crazy? Yes, very much so. I hope they look as good when they're fired!

my creative space

Was in the ceramic studio again today (I'm having soooooo much fun with all this clay!)a group shot (see post below for more individual pots!)

The actual space itself; full of ceramic underglazes, paintbrushes, clay tools (mainly the oh-so-useful needle), and my wallet to pay the coffee lady!

Find more creative folk here.

more paint, please!

And we continued painting for most of today (yay!)

This is my new favourite technique - relief work.

That base colour is actually purple, it looks very blue in this photo.

More relief work.


This is an old design of mine that I rekindled...looks kinda cute I reckon.

coloured pots

Yesterday, after turning them to neaten them up we started PAINTING! My all-time favourite!

A spot of banding.

And some scaffito.

pots, glorious pots!

we had our very first go on the potter's wheel last week, and with a lot of mess and even more help, I mananged to make these little dishes! Sadly some of them got a tad smushed in our effort to prevent them drying out too quickly.But I did get a few good ones (or maybe they're the ones the teacher did...hmm)This one's my favourite. It accidentily almost became a cup instead of a bowl....

a late edition

I just watched this mind blowing video of Kat Macleod working like lightning (yeah I know its speeded up...) over at Hello Sandwich, who's blog I found via Pip of Meet Me At Mikes!

my creative space

is the pottery studio at college today! I started the pottery unit just yesterday and oh my goodness I LOVE it! Can't wait to fire and paint these lovelies...

Thanks to Kirsty for hosting!

my creative space

this week my creative space is my camera - I'm in melbourne admiring the street art :)

union lane, cbd

union lane, cbd

brunswick st, fitzroy

more interesting folk over at Kootoyoo

my creative space

thought it was about time I joined in on Kootoyoo's weekly peek into our creative spaces :)

playing around with watercolours in my concepts unit

marvy colour chart tutorials on www.watercolorpainting.com

the (small) big one

final piece, watercolour paint on watercolour paper, with metallic acrylic details
detail of sky background

watery experiments

Del Kathryn Barton-inspired eyes
a nice watery blue background swish

first sketch of the prince

watercolour paint glaze chart - that phthalo blue is pesky!

inspiration: the door in the air

"...his face was dappled with silver stars, and it seemed that the stars were held together by a web of golden threads."

"...her head was full of pictures of the kingdom of the air, held by a net of gold, while the stars sang to one another in golden voices. She thought she saw suns touching fingers of light, and comets passing like rare visitors, their hair blowing out behind them by the power of sunlight behind it. Some stars clustered like swarming bees, and when the suns eclipsed, huge shadows rushed past."

Sources of Artists' Inspiration

Inspiration refers to an unconscious burst of creativity in an artistic, musical, or other intellectual endeavour. Literally, the word means “breathed upon” and has its origins in both Hellenism and Hebraism. In many religions, inspiration is believed to be a gift from the gods. Sigmund Freud and other later psychologists located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. The artist’s inspiration came out of the unresolved psychological conflict or childhood trauma. Further, inspiration could come directly from the subconscious. As Freud situated inspiration in the subconscious mind, Surrealist artists sought out this form of inspiration by turning to dream diaries and automatic writing, the use of Ouija boards and found poetry to try to tap into what they saw as the true source of art. In this research assignment, I will examine 2 artists’ work and how they find/found their inspiration; Del Kathryn Barton and Gustav Klimt.

Sydney artist Del Kathryn Barton creates obsessively detailed drawings of young women. Adorned and embellished with flourishes, tiny dots and patterns, these images display a compulsive beauty in their infinite detail. With technical dexterity, Barton’s labour of markings in pencil, acrylic, watercolour and gouache derive from a foundation in drawing.

The most striking feature of her characters must be their eyes; puddle-sized, liquid, shiny, deer-like eyes that are dizzying and saddened, swimming amongst the wash of watercolour cheeks. When asked about this aspect of her work, Barton says it was all to do with the birth of her first child and her obsession with her new born son’s eyes.
Sexuality also enters upon her work frequently. Her intention is not to shock, as these sexual images are not always the most startling part of her paintings and are often painted in such a delicate, beautiful way, it can take a few minutes of study to actually see them. Barton uses the sexual content as a means to push her personal comfort levels.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter, who was one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau movement. His major works include paintings, murals and sketches. His primary materials would have been canvas, charcoal and oil paint. Many of Klimt’s paintings feature gold leaf, the most prominent of which are ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’.Although Klimt did little travel in his lifetime, he did visit Venice and Ravenna, both famous for their beautiful mosaics which most likely inspired his gold technique and his Byzantine imagery, as well as his meticulous designs.
Klimt’s primary subject was the female body – more specifically the femme fatale - and his works are marked by a frank eroticism which is most apparent in his numerous drawings in pencil. He used mythology to thinly disguise his highly erotic nature, however, his drawings and sketches however display an explicit desire for the opposite sex and often reveal a purely sexual interest in women as objects.

Inspiration is an elusive thing. I know this is true for me, and I am sure for other artists too. Although there are many stimuli available in the world for artists; books, dreams, personal interests, television, people, films, magazines, nature, relationships, other artists, having that “light bulb” moment is so very rare. After investigating the artists Del Kathryn Barton and Gustav Klimt, I feel the best way to overcome an artistic block is to examine those things in life which are closest to you, and express that in your work.

(from my research assignment)

(images via http://www.kwgallery.com/downloads/essays/EssayBartonKing2005.pdf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt, and · http://www.globalgallery.com/artist.bio.php?nm=gustav+klimt)