For those of you who follow this blog even occasionally, you may be wondering what has been going on lately and why I haven't been updating the blog. The answer to this is simple. I have been very busy lately particularly with my job. At the same time, progression on my artwork has been moving along at a snail's pace. Everything is slowly progressing and that affects the blog. I have been rather tired lately and when it comes to making these posts, I'm a slow typer. I have to gather all the pictures, make sure they're posted correctly and then post the blog to more than half a dozen different sites. It takes a long time and I often don't have the energy for it. So the updates are coming. It'll just take a little while to catch up.
Prior to this post, the latest post was the November Part 3 blog. The next one will be this one obviously and then November Part 4 will come afterwards. That will hopefully happen soon. As of right now, here are the planned posts:
2018 Progress Report: November-Part 4
2018 Progress Report: December
2019 Plans
2019 Progress Report: February/March
Last year, I had decided to bring the Weekly Report back though that didn't quite work out. I still want to bring it back, though it might come back in a video format. I'm not 100% sure yet. For me, 2019 is looking like it may be a somewhat quiet year. That doesn't mean things aren't happening. They definitely are. It's just that due to all the things going on in my personal life, a lot of what I had planned for this year may not come to fruition until 2020, which is fine with me since I would rather get things done right instead resorting to making shit. That's how I've always been.
That's all I have for right now. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
https://www.patreon.com/Jon_Erich
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
2018 Progress Report: November-Part 3
During this week in November, I worked on one drawing and did molding paste work on two other pieces. Fiber paste work was also done during the week. It was getting to the point where the show was right around the corner and despite how fast work was getting work done, I always felt like there simply wasn't enough time. No matter how much I had achieved, there was always a lot more left to do. There were also things that would go wrong at the worst possible time such as having a glue gun break and finding out I made a huge mistake with one of the projects.
That's all I have for right now. Hopefully, I'll have Part 4 out soon. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
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| 11/18/18: The name label is in place. |
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| 11/18/18: I started doing the canvas work. |
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| 11/19/18: The canvas work is complete. |
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| 11/19/18: The gesso work is complete. |
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| 11/20/18: The Molding Paste work is complete. |
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| 11/20/18: Molding paste work is complete. |
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| 11/21/18: My self-portrait drawing is mostly done at this point. I really messed up on one of the eyes but I didn't bother fixing it since I knew that eye was going to be covered up later on. You can probably guess which eye is messed up. |
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| 11/21/18: I started doing the fiber paste work on the bottom half of the the sides. |
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| 11/21/18: I started doing the fiber paste work on the bottom half of the sides. It was a little tricky with this one. |
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| 11/23/18: Fiber paste work on the top half of the sides and inner parts. This took longer than I had anticipated. |
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| 11/23/18: The drawing is pretty much complete. |
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| 11/23/18: The drawing is now integrated with the ceramic part, though I am about to find out that I made a huge mistake on the back. I hinted at this mistake in past posts and I will explain it more in the next post. |
Thursday, March 7, 2019
2018 Progress Report: November-Part 2
During this week in November, I focused my attention on two projects. I was working on the drawing for one while I was working on the back for the other. My projects were quickly coming along though was still a lot of work left to be done. By the time the next week would arrive, I would continue working on the two projects below in addition to a third project.
That's all I have for right now. Hopefully, I'll have Part 3 out soon. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
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| 11/14/18: At the time of this picture, this drawing was close to being finished. Even though I started it several weeks earlier, when I finally got around to putting some serious work into it, it didn't take long to finish. |
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| 11/14/18: I finally have a laminated label down and have started the canvas work. |
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| 11/14/18: The canvas work has been completed. |
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| 11/15/18: The gesso work has been completed. |
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| 11/15/18: The drawing is all but completed. Additional darkened areas were added in order to surround the ceramic piece that will be placed on top of the drawing. |
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| 11/15/18: The ceramic piece has been glued down. |
Saturday, February 16, 2019
2018 Progress Report: November Part-1
Since the start of November, I had been transitioning from working on ceramics to working on drawings. This is simply the next step in the process of getting these projects done. Normally, I would like to have the drawings done before anything else but that just didn't happen. By the time the end of November comes, another transition will take place from drawing to acrylic mediums and paint.
That's all I have for right now. Hopefully, I'll have Part 2 out soon. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
https://www.patreon.com/Jon_Erich
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich
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| 11/5/18: This is the last ceramic piece that needs to be worked on. |
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| 11/5/18: I'm trying to apply a few different glazes in order to get a variety of results. |
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| 11/6/18: The firing was a success. These pieces are looking pretty good. |
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| 11/6/18: I still have a long ways to go with this drawing though it is starting to look presentable. |
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| 11/7/18: I think the drawing was pretty much finished at this point. It just needs a coat of gloss fixative which will happen later. |
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| 11/8/18: Gloss fixative had been applied, though I wish I hadn't done that since the fixative wraps the drawing and makes it harder to glue down on foam board. I did it mostly out of curiosity and that was a mistake. |
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| 11/8/18: It's starting to come together, finally. |
Friday, January 18, 2019
2018 Progress Report: October-Part 5
That's all I have for right now. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
https://www.patreon.com/Jon_Erich
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich
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| 10/30/18: I'm making sure all the pieces fit after the bisque firing. |
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| 10/30/18: This is basically the same as the first picture but from a different angle. |
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| 10/30/18: Here's yet another angle of the previous two pictures. With this particular project, the pieces can only stick on if they're glued on. Also, there's one piece missing. That's because it had to be fired separately due to the kiln being too full. |
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| 10/30/18: There was a lot of glazing that had to be done this week. |
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| 10/31/18: During the early morning of Halloween, I finished carving my turnips that I would use for a photoshoot later in the day. |
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| 10/31/18: I was working on this drawing. The proportions are still messed up, though I at least got an idea of what the general composition would be like. I should have been more careful when starting this drawing for reasons that I'll explain in a future post. |
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| 10/31/18: I started on yet another drawing. This is bed on a digital photo project I did back in 2006 called Jon-Erich's Eyes. |
Saturday, January 5, 2019
2018 Progress Report: October-Part 4
During the 4th week of October, I focused entirely on getting firings and wet clay work done, though I wish had gotten some more drawing done that week. I worked on three projects that had varying degrees of progress, at least in the studio. Although I don't have pictures of it in progress, I also spent the later half of October doing photography work outdoors to prepare for some digital projects, which was probably part of the reason I didn't any drawing work during the week.
That's all I have for right now. I'm trying to catch up on my posts and hopefully part 5 will be posted soon. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
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| 10/22/18: This piece finally got fired. Because of its size (at least 25" on its wide side), it took a while before there was enough room in the kiln to have this fired. |
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| 10/22/18: I finished glazing this piece. I'm trying to do an experiment with putting splotches of glazes down to see if it makes a big difference. |
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| 10/23/18: More P13 raku firings were done. the firings look pretty good, I think. |
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| 10/23/18: The raku firing for this piece got done. I learned a great deal from firing this piece. Even though I'm using a lot of the same glaze combinations on these pieces, I sometimes get metallic yellow on parts of a ceramic piece and I was never sure why. This piece may have answered that question. We had to put this piece in a separate trash can and the side that stuck out at the top turned yellow. We suspected that it was the rising smoke that caused the yellowing effect, which looks interesting. |
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| 10/23/18: I'm continuing work on this. It is surprisingly complex. There are a lot of pieces here. |
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| 10/24/18: In total, there are 20 small clay pieces that will eventually need to be glued onto the canvas. |
Thursday, January 3, 2019
2018 Progress Report: October-Part 3
During this week in October, I continued doing wet clay work and firings. I also finally got around to working on drawings again. While there weren't that many pictures taken during this week, a lot of progress was still made. To be honest though, it was around this time that I started falling behind schedule since the drawings were originally supposed to have been worked on earlier in October. Over the next few weeks, we'll see this weird pattern of projects jumping ahead of schedule only to immediately fall way behind schedule. This is the nature of mixed media work, where there are many components to a project instead of just drawing or sculpting.
That's all I have for right now. I'm trying to catch up on my posts and hopefully part 4 will be posted soon. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or buy buttons from my Etsy store.
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| 10/15/18: The bisque firings are finished. I even fired the smaller broken pieces, though I think one of them would end up going missing later. |
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| 10/15/18: The glazing has been done. |
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| 10/15/18: What is interesting about the pieces for the P13 project is that even though they use the same combination of glazes, the glazes are applied differently with each set that I make and because of the volatile nature of raku firings, each set will look different then the last. When I eventually attach all these piece to the P13 project, I'll have to work with various acrylic mediums to give each piece a sense of continuity. |
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| 10/16/18: While I normally like to leave each piece on the canvas until they dry, that didn't work with this one. The clay pieces kept falling off. |
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| 10/17/18: I finally started making progress with this drawing. This eye will eventually go on to be my best eye drawing yet. |
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| 10/17/18: I finally resumed work on this project. As of the time of this picture being taken, I got most of the proportions down. Ironically, even though this was the first project I started in 2018, it would be the last projector 2018 that I would finish. |
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