My Ceramic Experience in 2012: Part 2

In part 1 I described my experiences in my second ceramics class which happened roughly a year ago. Part 2 will focus on September and October of last year when I took my third ceramics class. In this class, I was allowed to hand build again and I wanted to refine everything I had learned from the previous classes. The projects I would work on would focus mostly on mastering techniques such as pinching, coil building, soft slabs, hard slabs, and a combination of both. Aside from focusing on techniques, I wanted to give my project a natural, organic look. I wanted my ceramic work to look less like they were constructed and more like they had grown from nature. I also wanted to continue to work with the throwing wheel even though I preferred hand building. Sadly, I didn't have enough time to focus on that.

September 2012

The first projects I started were three dish-like pieces that were meant to hang on a wall. I used glaze three glaze combinations for each of them. This one picture is the only picture from September. When I get around to talking about November and December, there will be more pictures.

9/11/12: The first three projects are early in development at this point. The texture on the bottom piece changed after this picture was taken.

October 2012

The projects I started working on at this point were getting larger. My next projects were going to be based on slab construction, one soft and one hard.

10/2/12: The slab projects in progress.  The hard slab piece is on the left and the soft slab piece is on the right.

10/9/12: The overall forms have been completed up to this point and some of the rough parts of the  two pieces have been smoothed over. The texture of course has not yet been added.

10/9/12: On the same day the form was completed, the texture work was also completed. 

10/23/12: Some of the work is done firing, although the hard slab piece had to be re-fired due to damages that occurred during the first glaze firing. The coil piece was starting to come along rather quickly.

The projects up to this point had made progress so quickly that I couldn't take too many pictures that I would consider significant towards capturing the progress of my work. Throughout November and December, the projects would become more difficult, take longer, and as a result would have more pictures. That'll be revealed in the next entry.

Upcoming Projects and Posts

January is almost over and February is upon us. That means within the next few days, I'll be back in the ceramic studio working on new projects. I'll also have a studio available to take good quality pictures of my ceramic work from last year. Those pictures are coming next month. Within the next few days and weeks, more posts about last year's ceramic work will be made. It's a new year and I'm looking forward to working on a lot of projects and maybe doing some shows. I can't say what will come of this year, but hopefully, it'll be great.

My Ceramic Experience In 2012: Part 1

For me, 2012 had it's ups and downs, but I'll always remember it as a year for my ceramic work. If I had to estimate, I would say I spent at least 8 or 9 months out of the year doing something with clay, wether it was wet work or fired work that had to be glazed. Now, before I continue, I should say that prior to 2012, I hadn't take a ceramics course since early 2009. Since then I had done some ceramic work, but had not spent too much time with it. This is one of the main reasons why 2012 was so interesting. I had to try an remember what I had learned while learning new things.

The first half of the year was Ceramics II. In this class, I had to use the throwing wheel, which I had never used before. There isn't too much to say about this class. It took me a while to get used to it and as a result, I fell behind on my projects. While what I ended up producing wasn't terrible, it wasn't up to my standards for what I would consider portfolio work and the work from that class is in process of being smashed up and possibly being used for one or several mixed media projects in the future. I did learn two things from this class. First, while I really wanted to improve my skills with the throwing wheel, it wasn't for me artistically. I prefer art that has more of a organic hand built quality to it as opposed to something that looks more mechanical. Second, I got some glaze combinations I really liked and while those exact combinations would not be used again, they would make a comeback in some form or another in the following ceramics class. It should also be mentioned that a lot of what I had learned in the first ceramics class back in 2009 would not be too relevant until the third class.

So that's part 1 of my ceramic experience in 2012. Since There were very few pictures from this class and most of them were for personal references and not meant to be shown to anyone, there weren't any pictures in this post. I promise part 2 will contain nice pictures so you won't have to read a wall of text.

Sorry about the lack of new posts....

The last month and a half has been has been very busy for me. Everything from Halloween preparation, school work, artwork, the hurricane...I haven't really thought too much about posting anything new. That's not to say there hasn't been anything to post, just the opposite. I've posted a few more buttons online to sell via Ebay and Etsy. I've also made a lot of progress with my ceramic work. That being said, I wanted to tell everyone that I'm going to have probably two big posts regarding my ceramic work in December after the semester ends. There will be a lot of pictures to post and a lot to explain, which is why it'll most likely consist of two posts. I may post something before that, I don't know. We'll see.

Artwork For Sale!

Jon-Erich's Halloween Button Set (kids set)

Jon-Erich's Halloween Set (adult set)

This is currently what I'm selling. These two sets are on sale on Ebay and Etsy for $4.00 plus shipping. I hope to start selling these on other places like Ebid as well. For this year at least, this is the only group of buttons I plan to sell as a set. For those of you who are lucky enough to see me in person, I can sell these directly to you so you can avoid paying for shipping. Hopefully over the next few days and weeks, I'm going to post these and other buttons that'll be sold as individual pieces for only $1.00 plus shipping. That being said, buying these particular buttons in a set will save you a little bit of money as opposed to buying each one individually. I also have some ceramic work that I made a while back that I plan to sell soon as well, hopefully within the next month. 

This is an exciting time for me because I've been making these buttons for a while now, and have had some success selling them at shows and through other means, but this is the first time they're available online. To be honest, I don't expect to sell much of anything right away. I'm hoping that at some point in the near future, when I'm able to have more art shows, I can sell my stuff there and then hopefully those same buyers will buy more online, which in turn hopefully attracts others who may not have an opportunity to see one of my shows. 

Everything here was done with a DIY attitude. I made the artwork, photographed the artwork, saved money by working at my horrible job which allowed my to buy the button machine, and made the button templates myself. A lot of hard work went into making these and for me, it's not just about the money. I believe in what I'm making. When I made these, my first thought was to make a product that I would want to buy. So, if I didn't believe in what I was making, I wouldn't sell it. 

Anyway, for those who are interested, my Ebay name is Jon-Erich-1985 and here's the link to my Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich.

Summer 2012 Progress Report #3: FINAL REPORT

I know it's technically not "summertime" anymore, but these pictures are from the summer. I'll be honest, the one project other than my digital photos that I've been working on over the summer hasn't made much progress within the last month, which is why the pictures aren't dated beyond August 19th. I hope to find time during the semester to work on this project some more. For those of you who didn't read the first progress report over the summer, go back and read that in order to get a better understanding of what I'm doing.

I'm also posting the latest progress I've made on my photos. Since the last blog entry, I finished one and I'll do a special post about that at a later date. The others are close to being finished, but they aren't because of other distractions (the school semester just started recently after all). You'll notice that some of the photos from last time aren't here. That's because I did a process of elimination and picked what I felt were the best pictures.

7/2/12: I finished the chicken wire work.

7/11/12: The one side was covered by this date. Eventually, 4ply bristol board will cover both sides.

8/19/12: I don't want to cover the rest of this with canvas until I get the bristol board glued down first. Even though the canvas on the inner part will be covered, I gesso it to add stability.

9/5/12: Like the other photos I've been working on, this also has high contrast and low saturation. So far, the color filter this is using is crimson, or something close to it.

9/5/12: This is quickly becoming one of my favorite photos. I had made it black and white before, but decided against it. The saturation in this picture is extremely low, but with high contracts, a red color filer and was darkened with hard light.

9/5/12: I used similar techniques in this photo that used in the other ones I described. I'm using an orange color filter.  One thing I love about this photo is how the sun is shining bright, yet I edited it in a way that gives off dramatic shadows on the other side. I think having both dramatic lighting and shading in an outdoors setting gives this photo a very surreal feeling. 

So, that's what I have so far. This is the last of the summer reports. Looking back on everything, I can honestly say that what I've done so far ranges from okay to pretty good, but the fact remains that I didn't do enough. I won't go into great detail as of why. Some of it is was my fault while some of it is not. Still, despite not going to school during the summer, the summer somehow ends up distracting me from my work (a lot of times, in negative ways), and I can actually get done more work during a school semester, even if I'm taking a class that has nothing to do with what I'm working on. This is how it's always been though. Anyway, now Autumn is approaching, my favorite time of the year and perhaps this will be the time to get more work done.

Summer 2012 Progress Report #2

Last week, I was working on some digital photographs I took throughout the month. Aside from work on my mixed media projects and my buttons, this has been, this is what I've been up to lately. What I have here are seven images that are still being worked on. I already know that I'm not going to keep all of the, although I definitely want to keep some of them. These were all edited in Photoshop and while a few of the images emphasize on different color tones, one thing they all have in common is that the contrast is extremely high while the saturation is very low. One image is black and white, but that might change. None of them have names yet, just numbers. I hope to have some of these finished soon.

My next progress report will either be about the finished pictures or an update of the project I was focusing on when I made my first progress report.

Photo #1: This one as of right now emphasizes on brown and orange color tones.

Photo #2: This one emphasizes on blues and greens.

Photo #3: This one emphasizes on blues and other darker colors.

Photo #4: This one emphasizes on red.

Photo #5: Although this is black and white, it's using a  red color filter.

Photo #6: This one emphasizes on orange tones.

Photo #7: This one focuses on red.