Wednesday, December 5, 2012

A brief overview...

...of an overdue update:
Art happened.
It was critiqued, and found variously good, bad, and improving.
The artist FINALLY understood some things that everyone had been trying to tell her. Only took three months.
*sigh*

Well, in response to most of the feedback I've been getting for my recent body of work, I have moved (kicking and screaming) into low-fire glazes and clays, though I'm still producing a little high-fire functional work on the side and using the occasional bit of cone 10 clay.
I take forever to convince, but I will readily admit that low-fire is so. much. better. for what I'm doing now that I've tried it.  No pics of completed cone 06-02 work yet, but here is a pretty of the mushroom I posted weeks ago. It is fired and finished and I love it (mostly).

 The responses I get on the finish intrigue me. 1/2 the people love it, the other half hate it. I both. The stem is a rutile variation of Bauer Clear, and it brings out the texture well, *I* think. Not crazy about the color, but it works. I don't have a good shot of the cap yet, but that worked out quite nicely - a gradation from yellow-brown to green, with deep highlights in the cracks.
And here is a bone dry critter of beastliness.  I'm doing more texture now that I've worked out a) what teachers/classmates meant in their critiques and b) how to achieve the desired results without wanting to stab the thing to frustrated death half way through.

Tomorrow, if the kiln behaves, I will have the first FULL crop of low-fire beasties and environments.  And then next Wednesday is my 1st year review. Lord willing, there will be 2 more kiln firings between now and then.

~Lucy