Pit Fire: Part 2

I started by wedging 4 or 5 pieces of clay to use on the wheel. It took a couple tries to center the piece but once I got it I had a lot of fun creating my piece. I tried to widen the clay and then shape it back to narrow to create the look I was going for. It ended up dipping in on one side, but I really liked it and it was unique so I kept it. I painted some of it with terasig but I wanted some red colors, so I added salt into the foil. I also glued on flowers which you can see in one of the pictures. That's about all that I did. I would definitely do it again and use different materials to see what will happen. I would like to use hair and wire the next time I do it. This technique is different from traditional firings because it depends on what objects are involved as to what your piece will turn out as. Kiln firing mostly turns out how you put it in the kiln.

Pit Fire: Part 1

Pit firing is the oldest method for firing pottery. It uses objects to burn in order to make smoke that stains the piece. A foil saggar is a process in which the piece is wrapped in aluminum foil so that the objects that are placed inside the foil can burn and stain the piece in different ways and colors.

Relief Post: Part 2

I think my piece was very successful. I sort of wish I would have done my original plan of an underwater type of thing where the fingers were coming out without the palm being visible. But I think my execution of what I ended up doing was great. The mini tile helped me understand how relief worked and was good practice of scraping away clay to reveal something. The cardboard was fun but I don't think my group's project necessarily helped with the main relief piece. I overcame shaping the fingers which was a problem I had. Getting the fingers to form out of the background was difficult, but it ended up working out.  

Magazine Sculpture

wave 

Relief Post: Part 1

https://www.pinterest.com/habana1023/relief-inspiration/ link to pinterest board

My pinterest board has a couple different themes that I am trying to explore. One is the hand relief that would be pretty three dimensional. I remember when I was a kid, we had this toy that was tiny metal pins you could push to make the image on the other side (I'll attach a picture so you know what I'm talking about). I like how in some of the pins I found, it showed the hand coming up through water.. I tried to quickly sketch something like that in my sketchbook. Another theme I was interested in was a colorful abstract piece using nails and either rubber bands or yarn (I pinned a really simple example of the principle of what I mean). I would use those abstract pieces that I pinned as inspiration to make a colorful landscape (almost) with a lot of dimension and a smooth texture. I also thought that the 2D/3D approach might be cool, as the pin the zebra and ship suggest, so that it would be a 3 dimensional sculpture, but it would also have some perspective so that it looked even more 3D from a specific angle.

Inspired Artist

The artist that I found is named Daniel Arsham. Daniel was born in Miami and currently lives in New York. He is a contemporary artist who focuses on the human figure, technological objects, and architecture. Uniquely, he executes 2D (drawings), 3D (sculptures), and 4D (preforming) arts. In most of his material, he depicts erosion, which is interesting when discussing the human figure. Architecture is a prevalent subject throughout his work as well. He is recognized for his creation in the stage design for the Mercy Cunningham Dance Company, which toured in Australia, France, and multiple locations in the United States. I haven't seen a lot of his performance art, but I do find a lot of inspiration in his sculpting. Personally, I love using the human figure as a subject in my art, so seeing such an interesting take on it (the erosion he creates) inspired me to do something different with my own human figures, His website is http://www.danielarsham.com/

Final Blog Post

Kehinde Wiley's art is interesting to me because he has very realistic people in the foreground and then he usually does a flowery or decorative background. I like his art a lot and my alien piece reminds me of his art because I tried to do a realistic looking female alien with the flowers in the background.

After making this piece, there are things I would have liked to do better. Wiley's art looks a lot more realistic than my alien, so based on his art, I would have liked to make this look better. 

My essential question piece also reminds me of Wiley's art because it is focused on one person with an interesting background. 

This is a completely different style from Wiley, but it is similar because it's one singular person in the middle of the canvas with a background. The difference is the detail, realism, and the complexity of the background. My background is more basic, but it is as important as his. The highlight around the body speaks in almost the same way as the flowers overlapping his subjects limbs.