Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Collection a Day, 2010: Day 260

A Collection a Day, 2010: Day 260: "Baby doll hands (yes, perhaps the weirdest collection I've ever shown!)"

Interesting blog I've found from a San Francisco artist and illustrator - a collection a day, either drawings or photos.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Wired

I've been rather consumed of late with assignments on Organisational Change Management for uni ... and haven't managed to actually create much ... however it doesn't stop me thinking about it.  

I've played a bit with wire before ... particularly copper wire.  I love it's colour ... I like the malleability of it ... the patterns it can make.

Detail of a copper wire woven form
I've experimented a bit with weaving such as the example above and made a whole bunch of flowers over the  years as well which have been distributed amongst my friends and family.


Copper wire and drafting paper flower - unpainted
Most of them I painted bright colours, however I did keep one unpainted ... and it's still a favourite today.   I like the patterns of the old drawings in this flower ...  My father is a mechanical engineer and he used to give me rolls and rolls of old plans, back in the day before CAD.  It was extremely handy and became the inspiration for the flowers ... along with copper wire.

I would probably do lots more with copper wire now if it was for the price of cooper these days.  I used to go to a metal merchant years ago were copper wasn't really of interest them.  These days ... they want to buy it off you not sell it you.  That got me thinking about wire coat hangers.  They aren't as ease to bend ... but they are definitely easy to come by ...

Of course, it's been done before ... I found these great examples of sculptures from coat hangers ... definitely inspirational:

http://modernurbanliving.com/2008/10/coat-hanger-art/

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

All a glaze ... soon ...

I've been prepping for glaze and trying to decide on final effects .... it's been so long since I've glazed something I'm struck an indecision phase.  Which effect on what?!

I remember doing things like putting colour glass pieces in pottery for firing ...but I somehow think I'll try and keep it to glaze effects this time.  I have brought a glaze pencil which I will draw with on some of the blank pendant shapes I made.  I have some designs ready in my sketch book ... just wonder if I should of brought more than one as I only have a red coloured one at the moment.

I have so many pendants I can afford to play a bit ... however I do want some of them to work out successfully.  I am hoping to give some of them as Christmas presents.  I've had some people suggest selling them which I guess is a positive sign, but my main aim really is to explore creative outlets ... to get my hands dirty ... not necessarily to make money from it!

I'm being to think that simple designs are the best but the glaze will prove me either right or wrong.  One of my favourite pendant designs is really quite simple:

Pendant - unglazed
However there is a design of a flower which is much more detailed ... (but not hand carved - it's pressed into the clay) but with the right glaze it could come up trumps:

Flower pendant

My biggest dilemma is the cake stand that cracked during firing.  I'm am quite sure this one cracked because it was at the very top of the kiln and once open the cool air hitting it first has resulted in some cracks.  The piece itself is still quite strong, however the cracks a little wider than what I would of liked - I'm not sure if glaze will fill them - and worst of all the cracks have meant that the surface is not level ... at one of the cracks you can feel a drop in height.  Guess this one is an experiment.

Can I fill the cracks with glaze?