2015 Progress Report: October

A lot happened in October. With under a month left to have everything ready in time for my show, there was a sense of urgency to get things done. There were also a lot of headaches when trying to get my mixed media piece The Tragic Forest done in time. Still, I had a lot of fun and a lot of positive feelings came from feeling so productive.

10/6/15: At this point, the overall look and direction of this drawing has been decided but it still isn't finished. The rope still looks a little flat and there still isn't enough shading.

10/7/15: Although it was the second picture taken, it is actually the third sagger piece that I made. Unlike the first one I made, this was much easier to smooth out when it got leather hard. For those of you who don't know or understna dthe process, you'll have to see it in it's final form to understand what I'm talking about.

10/7/15: The second sagger piece. This is my least favorite of the three designs, although it was easy to work with. The only difficult part was the tip at the end. It was hard to create a smooth, shiny surface at that point which is why I didn't emphasis on it as much with the third piece.

10/13/15: The second drawing of the P4 project finally started goiing somewhere. Because I am not fluent in Japanese, I had to rely on what I could see on the references I used rather than what I understood.

10/14/15: At this point, mistakes have already been made. Also, this part is taking a long time.

10/18/15: The back of the main part of the P4 project used molding paste in order to further strengthen the integrity of the piece. This is the first layer.

10/20/15: The bisque firing for this finally got done. Everything came out intact. I still found it odd to be looking at this piece because I rarely create work that doesn't have defined textures.

10/20/15: I really like this form a lot. I think this best represents what I was trying to achieve with my ceramic work around this time.

10/20/15: I was glad this came out of the kiln intact. I was a little worried about this one.

10/20/15: This uses four raku glazes; black, red copper, blue crackle, and red bronze. I use the blue crackle on all of these and for some reason, that was the one that had trouble staying on intact and I still believe it had a lot to do with how the firings for these pieces eventually turned out. It should also be mentioned that despite using a number a glazes, I didn't simply overlap one over the other as you can see in the picture.

10/20/15: This uses four raku glazes; black, red copper, blue crackle, and friday surprise. Again, the blue crackle is chipping.

10/20/15: This uses the raku glazes black, red copper, blue crackle, and xtra calico higby.

10/20/15: The Japanese characters are finally finished. It was one of the most difficult parts of a drawing that I've ever had to do even though it doesn't seem like it.

10/21/15: This is starting to look much better than before. It's just about complete by this point and won't go through anymore major changes until the gloss fixative is applied towards the end of the P4 project.

10/21/15: We finally starting to see some depth perception here. Also, since I'm drawing a forest in the background, I decided to deliberately make the background a little more dirty in order to make everything a little easier to draw. Also, more trees are starting to make an appearance.

10/21/15: This still needs some more cleaning but at this point, I am liking the rsults of this. There are areas where the glzes seem to be missing and I still blame that on the blue crackle. However, I did like the effect enough to where I decided not to have this or the other pieces re-fired.

10/21/15: Even though this doesn't have as much shine as the other pieces, I still like the results here.

10/21/15: Although I have mixed feelings about the results for this piece, it did become a favorite at my show Haunted Autumn.

10/23/15: The second layer of molding paste was applied. This time, I tried to make the surfaces as smooth as possible in order to make the eventual quick paint job easier. The only are that was left undone was the part towards the bottom where the name label would eventually be placed.

10/27/15: I started working on the name lebel for The Vessel. There are three things I should point out here. First, I started using a bolded font in order to make the small lettering more distinguishable. Second, I used two different font sizes. I ususally just used one. Third, I swapped the positioning of the words "Created by Jon-Erich" and "2015". I thought it finally made more sense to do this and it also looked more visually structured.

10/27/15: The lettering is a little larger here.

10/27/15: Just like Desolation, the lettering here is a little larger but I feel that maybe I should have used a smaller font size.

10/27/15: The light molding paste work is done.

10/27/15: The light molding paste work is done but I feel smaller font sizes should have been used because it is too close to the molding paste.

10/27/15: Like Desolation, I feel the letters are too close to the molding paste. I'm getting better at this all the time but there's still something I'm learning each time I do it.

10/27/15: A little more of the land mass has been drawn along with some early lighting, although I would say that in some ways, the drawing has gotten worse since the previous pictures were taken. That is quite common for me though, especially ehrn I haven't done any major drawing projects in some time and I'm getting used to everything again.

10/28/15: We're finally seeing the P4 project come together. For those of you who had trouble trying to figure out where this project was heading and how these three parts would come together will get everything now. Every picture before this will make perfect sense now.

10/28/15: The gesso work has been complete. I did get some gesso on the drawings and that had to be cleaned up later.

10/30/15: P4 finally got a name.

10/30/15: Like the ceramic work, I used light molding paste in order to reduce the drying time and so I wouldn't have to add more weight to this piece that is already heavier than I wanted it to be.

10/31/15: On the front of this, I used a medium called coarse pumice gel. I used it earlier this year on another project I did called Stone Cold. As of this picture, not all of the pumice gel work was done. A lot of it had to sit in front of a fan all night and dry.