ceramics
Ceramics: American Raku
(obviously this is not traditional Japanese Raku, it is a low fire process which has been developing and is still developing)
I’ve been focusing on a series of masks... first I made a very rough armatures out of bunched up newspaper (keeping it reasonably loose because the clay just needs a little support, and I do want it to pull away easily when the piece is dry).
I roll out a slab of clay and lay it on the armature, building a face which is stylized but reasonably realistic because this is the more charming image to me. I’ve always loved faces: I love the little fold at the side of the mouth, and the way the eye lid stretches over the eye... I find faces to be endlessly fascinating and beautiful.
In most of the masks I cut out the eye, leaving it hollow... this is partly because it is a mask and also as an homage to Modigliani (one of my all time favorite artists) who frequently painted the eyes as simple ovals which were the same color as the wall behind the figure...so that even when painting a portrait of a friend or a lover, he was making their face a mask....
While the clay is still in it’s ‘wet’ workable stage I paint color on with slips (a liquid clay with different chemicals added). Here I sometimes just paint in an abstract way, to increase the design and add to the mask like feel, and other times I paint in a more realistic way to create a more subjective human look. And I will sometimes carve into the clay: if I carve before painting then I create a designed to be embellished with the paint, but if I carve after painting with the slip then I am breaking up the color and getting back to the natural clay under neither. Both have their individual advantages.
Once the piece is completely air dried it is called green ware and at this point it is ready to be bisque fired, and then it is ready to be glazed.
There are very specific glazes that are used in Raku/low fire ceramics...most have a very natural look...but of course I use the clear a lot. The clear glaze will preserve the colored slips I painted on and will also preserve the color of the natural clay where ever it is showing... Traditional Raku also calls for some rich natural brown & black glazes, which I will be using, but more sparingly. But best of all (IMO) is the copper glaze which adds a rich metallic shine, sometimes in browns & oranges but usually in greens... I am insane for the metallic shiny!! (we cannot use too many exclamation points here) It is the best thing ever. I will be going nuts with the copper glaze.
Actually there is one last glaze my teacher has prepared: a brocade glaze which has some metallic, and a lot of black ... it is a very heavy rough look, and not something I could ever use a lot of, but I am going to try to do one piece which will feature it. We’ll see how I do.
I should point out that any part of the piece which is not glazed will end up burnt black:
the low fire kiln is located out doors and when we are done with the final glazed firing we remove each piece quickly from the kiln and place it in a bucket filled with combustible material (usually wood chips, but straw, hair, leaves, newspaper...anything will work) where it will burst into flame. Once the flame has burnt itself out the piece is then plunged quickly into cold water, this will cause some cracking in the glaze (hopefully not in the piece!) and the effects are very beautiful.
Naturally it does become a crap shoot...will my painting be enhanced by the glazes? Will the glazes come out as I wished (more or less, I keep my expectations pretty loose at this stage)?
Last week we did a firing but I only got one mask finished, but this week I have definitely caught up, getting eight (8!) more done.
You can see that the one on the bottom is atypical: I was trying just keeping the clay mostly flat and painting on it, but I wasn't satisfied with turning this into just a painting project, and I felt I didn't express as much by limiting my medium. One of the best qualities of the clay is the whole idea of forming a human face from a lump of clay, creating the features by pushing and pulling the clay.
The following has a lot of photo spam, you may not want to try to open if it will take too long to upload the pictures (but I did keep them pretty small)
Here you can see a face which I was trying to keep realistic, and then I only painted with white slip (this is it at it's bisque ware stage):
followed by the same piece after the Raku glazing: I glazed clear over most of the mask and then took the copper glaze across the face in a diagonal. You can see that the clear glaze cracked a lot (which is good) unfortunately the photo doesn't really show off the metallic sheen of the copper glaze.
On this next mask you can see one that I carved on and painted in colored slips (first is the bisque stage)
followed by the finished raku glazed & fired piece; again I used the clear glaze (which crackled a lot) over the painted area, and then used the copper glaze across the beard and eye brows.
Here is a similar piece done in very much the same was as the above:
And a third which was also painted in slips, and then glazed with clear and copper:
actually on this one you can see a hint of the metallic shine the copper creates if you look at the bottom right of the finished piece, somehow the photo had trouble showing much more than the green...but the finished masks actually reflect quite a rainbow of colors....
This final piece was a huge departure, and was inspired by some work that another woman in the class was doing, I'm not sure if I will be pursuing this, but I was thrilled with the results. On the left you can see that I made a mask like form out of plain clay which I heavily textured:
I painted it completely with the copper, then when that was dry I used a sponge to remove all the copper on the surface, leaving all the color in the cracks of the texture. Then I did a clear glaze over the entire piece. I am very happy with the design and look of this piece, but it doesn't actually fit in with my exploration of the human face in any meaningful (to me) way. So I probably will not be doing more like this.
So this gives you some idea of what I've been working on. It actually means quite a bit to me.
(obviously this is not traditional Japanese Raku, it is a low fire process which has been developing and is still developing)
I’ve been focusing on a series of masks... first I made a very rough armatures out of bunched up newspaper (keeping it reasonably loose because the clay just needs a little support, and I do want it to pull away easily when the piece is dry).
I roll out a slab of clay and lay it on the armature, building a face which is stylized but reasonably realistic because this is the more charming image to me. I’ve always loved faces: I love the little fold at the side of the mouth, and the way the eye lid stretches over the eye... I find faces to be endlessly fascinating and beautiful.
In most of the masks I cut out the eye, leaving it hollow... this is partly because it is a mask and also as an homage to Modigliani (one of my all time favorite artists) who frequently painted the eyes as simple ovals which were the same color as the wall behind the figure...so that even when painting a portrait of a friend or a lover, he was making their face a mask....
While the clay is still in it’s ‘wet’ workable stage I paint color on with slips (a liquid clay with different chemicals added). Here I sometimes just paint in an abstract way, to increase the design and add to the mask like feel, and other times I paint in a more realistic way to create a more subjective human look. And I will sometimes carve into the clay: if I carve before painting then I create a designed to be embellished with the paint, but if I carve after painting with the slip then I am breaking up the color and getting back to the natural clay under neither. Both have their individual advantages.
Once the piece is completely air dried it is called green ware and at this point it is ready to be bisque fired, and then it is ready to be glazed.
There are very specific glazes that are used in Raku/low fire ceramics...most have a very natural look...but of course I use the clear a lot. The clear glaze will preserve the colored slips I painted on and will also preserve the color of the natural clay where ever it is showing... Traditional Raku also calls for some rich natural brown & black glazes, which I will be using, but more sparingly. But best of all (IMO) is the copper glaze which adds a rich metallic shine, sometimes in browns & oranges but usually in greens... I am insane for the metallic shiny!! (we cannot use too many exclamation points here) It is the best thing ever. I will be going nuts with the copper glaze.
Actually there is one last glaze my teacher has prepared: a brocade glaze which has some metallic, and a lot of black ... it is a very heavy rough look, and not something I could ever use a lot of, but I am going to try to do one piece which will feature it. We’ll see how I do.
I should point out that any part of the piece which is not glazed will end up burnt black:
the low fire kiln is located out doors and when we are done with the final glazed firing we remove each piece quickly from the kiln and place it in a bucket filled with combustible material (usually wood chips, but straw, hair, leaves, newspaper...anything will work) where it will burst into flame. Once the flame has burnt itself out the piece is then plunged quickly into cold water, this will cause some cracking in the glaze (hopefully not in the piece!) and the effects are very beautiful.
Naturally it does become a crap shoot...will my painting be enhanced by the glazes? Will the glazes come out as I wished (more or less, I keep my expectations pretty loose at this stage)?
Last week we did a firing but I only got one mask finished, but this week I have definitely caught up, getting eight (8!) more done.
You can see that the one on the bottom is atypical: I was trying just keeping the clay mostly flat and painting on it, but I wasn't satisfied with turning this into just a painting project, and I felt I didn't express as much by limiting my medium. One of the best qualities of the clay is the whole idea of forming a human face from a lump of clay, creating the features by pushing and pulling the clay.
The following has a lot of photo spam, you may not want to try to open if it will take too long to upload the pictures (but I did keep them pretty small)
Here you can see a face which I was trying to keep realistic, and then I only painted with white slip (this is it at it's bisque ware stage):
followed by the same piece after the Raku glazing: I glazed clear over most of the mask and then took the copper glaze across the face in a diagonal. You can see that the clear glaze cracked a lot (which is good) unfortunately the photo doesn't really show off the metallic sheen of the copper glaze.
On this next mask you can see one that I carved on and painted in colored slips (first is the bisque stage)
followed by the finished raku glazed & fired piece; again I used the clear glaze (which crackled a lot) over the painted area, and then used the copper glaze across the beard and eye brows.
Here is a similar piece done in very much the same was as the above:
And a third which was also painted in slips, and then glazed with clear and copper:
actually on this one you can see a hint of the metallic shine the copper creates if you look at the bottom right of the finished piece, somehow the photo had trouble showing much more than the green...but the finished masks actually reflect quite a rainbow of colors....
This final piece was a huge departure, and was inspired by some work that another woman in the class was doing, I'm not sure if I will be pursuing this, but I was thrilled with the results. On the left you can see that I made a mask like form out of plain clay which I heavily textured:
I painted it completely with the copper, then when that was dry I used a sponge to remove all the copper on the surface, leaving all the color in the cracks of the texture. Then I did a clear glaze over the entire piece. I am very happy with the design and look of this piece, but it doesn't actually fit in with my exploration of the human face in any meaningful (to me) way. So I probably will not be doing more like this.
So this gives you some idea of what I've been working on. It actually means quite a bit to me.