Father's Day Portrait

Charcoal Self Portrait

Tried a new shading and blending technique that my dad and I were discussing and implemented it into a present for him.

Finished Tea Set

After changing color schemes many times I present....

Tea Service (minus tea cups)

Ms. Curvaceous

Full Curvaceous Service

Full tea set

Now I just need to figure out what colors to glaze it with...

Glazed Basket

Underglazed roses, shamrocks, and thistle.

Extruding with gum arabic

Belleek inspired Basket

Newly Fired Bowls

Woven bowl (inspired by belleek)

underside

Geometric slab bowl

underside

Tea Set

Four piece set so far, tray and utensils to come.

New Tea Pot

Thrown body, lid, and spout with hand pulled handles

Oil Painting Progress

Can you believe this is my first time oil painting, well actually I tried it for a few days in high school and wasn't very successful with the medium so I didn't try again... until now, and now I love it!  Turns out I wasn't using enough turpentine.

Week one (charcoal drawing)

Week Two (finalize composition and outline with burnt umber)

Week Three (Blocking out colors)

Week Four (finish base layer of paint)

Week Five (correcting positioning and contrast)

Week Six (adding details and finalizing)

Finished Scrap Scarf

Took this photo on my phone and just realized it is out of focus,
 but I already gifted it for christmas, and she loves it!
Place your orders I have loads of scraps hehe 

Weaving over the Holidays

Started a new kind of scarf last week, to use all of my waste yarn from past weaving projects.  I call it "Scrap Scarf," think I will be weaving these for a while since I have lots of short prices of yarn. Will post the finished product soon!

High Fire Kiln Results

glaze technique inspiration from Linda Sikora

glaze inspiration from leaves in the snow

Busy in the studio

Since the show a few weeks ago, I have made many ceramic pieces and this morning I began an oil painting. 

Here is a large vase I have been sculpting, two thrown fall tea bowls, and the base charcoal drawing for my newest painting.

Success!

I sold the tea bowl, a ceramic hot plate, and three other ceramic wave vessels at the show.  I was very excited because this is the first time I have ever put any of my ceramics up for sale.

This was my display

Glazed Tea Bowl

Unloaded the kiln and this is the finished product.

I am also going to make a matching platter, to accompany it.

This set along with a framed chai tea print will be on display and up for sale in the upcoming Orange Art Center Faculty show on Friday September 6th from 6-9pm.

(my featured artwork is the golden ceramic tray on the bottom row)

Hope to see you there!

Here is an sneak preview of my print before I frame it.

New Tea Bowl

Last Thursday afternoon I stayed late after teaching hand building at the Orange Art Center Studio to practice throwing and try out a new technique.

This is what I came up with...

while the clay was still wet
I used the end of a pencil eraser

to create a unique morphed shape and speckled texture.

I can't wait to glaze it!

Fired Urn

Here is how it turned out,  I was initially a disapointed because the colors didn't turn out as light as I thought they would and the detail work I did didn't stand out as much as I thought it would.  I am going to add some light glaze in the shapes and indentations and refire it this week.  What do you think?

Glazing the Big Urn (Continued)

After applying latex over the earlier glazed shapes ...

Its time for the high pressure spray gun!

Starting with the lid, I gave the entire piece a thin even layer of glaze.

After being sprayed it looks red because the copper when fired in the glaze turns green.

The base is up next, I spin the wheel that it sits on in the spraying booth to get an even coat of glaze.

TA-DA... now there is still a lot of work to be done. 

Next I rinsed off a little bit of the extra glaze on the latex surface

 so that when it comes time to take it off it won't break as easily.

Took a needle tool and grabbed the edge of the latex and pulled it back to leave a clean shape of glaze.

All of those little pieces of latex took a while to remove, 156 in all.

So worth it, looks great so far

Let's hope it makes it through the kiln alright.

It is waiting now on the kiln cart to get fired in the reduction kiln.

 Should be fired in a week or two.  I will be back with the results!

Welcome!

Decided to make this blog to post my personal art work.  I already have a blog for my teaching and students work: http://raackartroom.blogspot.com, but I am on break from teaching this week, so I picked some studio work back up again and decided it was worth showing.  Hope you Enjoy!

Yesterday I busted out this Ceramic Urn that was hiding in the corner of my kitchen behind a table in a coffee box with a do not touch sign on it.  It had been bisque fired but not glazed yet.  So I asked my friend Kat who is also an Art Educator to help me bring it to the studio in her car, it is to heavy to carry a long distance.  We got it to the studio in one piece.  

Brought it to the SU glaze room and began laying out the glaze pattern and choosing glaze colors.

These are the two colors I decided on after looking at combinations and test tiles for about an hour. 

To get a good idea of what the final urn would look like with the glaze, I photoshopped a photograph I took with possible glaze colors and applications, until I came up with this plan.  The numbers are the glaze combinations to produce the mossy green and sea colors.  The arrows and symbols are to glazed parts you can't see, such as the top view of the handle, underneath the lid, and under the foot of the urn.

My set up: paper mat, latex, cup, brush, turn table, wet sponge, layout on computer

Following my plan I started by sketching the shapes I needed to glaze in the dark green color.

This morning I perfected my layout of shapes and latexed around them.

Glazed in the shapes, peeled off the latex around them, and applied latex over the glazed shapes.

I will glaze the remainder of the urn in the lighter color tomorrow.