End of Year Assessment

What's that you say? Year Two finished....ALREADY?! 

That's right, it's assessment day and I can't believe again how quick this has come round again! What an amazing year though. I feel so excited and happy that I am doing all this right now :)

Having finally got round to achieving some finished objects and items for assessment (yay!) here is my space, and I am very proud of it:

latex, surface and glaze samples boards

additional samples and plaster moulds

And here are some of my chosen few, this is what's exciting me for the journey ahead:

another lovely bubbling

a bisque fired finish which has challenged my notion of 'what is finish on a non-functional object'

and my favourite Latex and Ceramic combinations....

..that show the direction of where I'd like to be heading next year

Really excited for where this all might lead and looking forward to the long summer. I'm off on a drawing trip to Gdansk in a few weeks so will be up with drawings from that soon! Happy holidays, and hopefully some sunshine (?!), 

lots of love, 

Decorative Arts, BA (Hons), Year Two  x

Notch

This is why I love my course....a video from the current third years that celebrates everything Dec Arts can do!

See more of their delights over at Notch and come visit the degree show!

Repeat Pattern Workshops

We had a 2D repeat pattern workshop a few weeks ago with Martyn. He delivered instruction on the traditional methods in repeat pattern design and using photoshop, and having wanted to draw my current work for a while it was a really great excuse in which to do so. Taking a big sheet of paper and drawing drawing drawing, my design from that workshop was this:

I feel that it is perhaps a bit busy but with some digital tweaking this could become quite interesting.

For the 3D workshop we were asked to bring in 100 of the same material/object to create 3D forms. I looked to the additional components of my work at the moment (nails and bamboo), plus a few extras from the shop (treasury tags) and got to work!

From the morning session I created these:

    

Then I went on to draw them in the afternoon. Although they are quite different from my normal kind of drawings, I'm quite pleased with the results:

As with the 2D workshop drawing, I'd like to use the information in the video about repeat pattern using photoshop and play with these lines whilst adding some colour.

Stiching with nails and the results of a High Firing

So, you remember that nice piece of porcelain with the nails?

Well after its bisque fire it went back in the kiln for a high fire (1260'c)

and looooooook! 

that is some nice bubbling!

I'm experimenting with some more.....

check back for results next week!

Construct, Deconstruct, Slip-cast, Fold and Pin

I've been having a great time with slip-casting recently, some exciting shapes and forms appearing! Here's what's been happening in the workshop:

unfired experiments, cast with terracotta slip

eddoe cast with nail/pin additions

The terracotta palette: unfired, bisque fired to 1000'c, fired to 1100'c and high fired to 1260'c

bisque fired experiments - the blackened pins are lovely! 

how I would use the palette tests to decide on colours (left sample is an 1180'c firing - so black cherry warm!)

experimenting with pins and porcelain

and more porcelain forms

I'm interested in what's happening and my next task is to consider how to include some of my latex sampling. I am keen to use some of the colourings and glaze tests that I did last week too so we will see where this takes me next...

Before I Die I want to....

We held a fundraiser last week to raise some money for our course. It was a really successful event raising over £400! There are lots of pictures up our facebook page, take a look! 

As part of the event we had a stall selling our work, and a table showing sketchbooks. 

I left some post its out so people leafing through could note which pages they liked. It was a good way of getting some feedback on work. These pages were highlighted from my sketchbooks: 

I was surprised by this one as I hate this drawing!!

pleased by this one though - it's very much in tune with
where my work is heading right now!

It has got the whole course in buzz about events and fundraising ideas which is great! Back to work this week though and hopefully some more updates on here, it's been too long (again).

Exploring mark-making and the 3D object

Using my favourite outcomes from the mark-making exercise last term, I have created a series of 3D objects. 

Choosing: 

Paired with: