Finishing my forms and reflection on this unit

This week I have been creating my chimney forms and also experimenting more with surface texture, sgraffito, oxides and glazes on their surfaces.

I have really enjoyed experimenting with different textures and creating a variety of sizes and shapes for my forms.

I feel that my recent forms, made in ivory stoneware clay with sgraffito on their surfaces, have been very successful as I really like the contrast between the intricacy and the preciseness of the sgraffito drawings and the randomly distributed textures across the surface of the forms.

After looking at my test tiles in my previous blog post I decided that I wanted to create different surfaces, textures and colours across my forms using glazes oxides and coloured slips. Therefore this week I have also been experimenting with applying oxides and glazes to some of my pieces.

I feel that my key motivations for this unit were to explore using the images from the industrial revolution and to experiment with how I could transfer these images onto clay. I also wanted to experiment with how I could evoke feeling from my pieces much like how I felt very strongly when I looked at these images.

During this unit I have discovered that I really enjoy working in ceramics as I was never sure before whether I should focus on ceramics or metal. I feel that my ideas and designs best fit ceramics as it allows me to explore surface pattern (which in this unit I have discovered I am very interested in and would like to explore in the future)and texture and create forms I would find it hard to do in metal.

I researched this project thoroughly from the start and feel that this enabled me to realise what it was about the industrial revolution that fascinated me and what I wanted to explore. I feel that I planned my time well and therefore made the most of all my time in the workshops.

I found that both my individual tutorials but especially the group tutorials helped me greatly as by listening to everyone else talk about their work it enabled me to see how they needed to improve. Therefore it made it clearer to me and easier for me to understand what I needed to do to progress when talking about my own work. I feel that I really developed my self-analysis in this project and I am now more confident in analysing my own work and reflecting on how I could improve it.

I do however feel that I need to improve on my reflective writing as I’ve found it difficult in this unit to get straight to the point in my blog posts and not be too descriptive.

Oxides, glazes and forms.

Last week I concentrated on testing out glazes and oxides on my test pieces of clay with textured surfaces and also on my sgraffito samples.

My ambition is to bring out the texture of the surfaces I create on my forms by using oxides to create a worn and derelict effect on my pieces, much like the bricks of the cotton mills in the industrial revolution.

By firing this sgraffito sample (below) to 1240 the coloured slip, which I applied and in places scratched away, has transformed from chalky dull reds, blacks and oranges to vibrant burnt chimney like colours which I feel are very effective and reflect the industrial quality I want to achieve in my work.

I also feel these samples are very effective as I like the way the clear shiny glaze and the clear matt glaze bring out different colours and qualities from the coloured slip and the oxides.

When making my final chimney forms I plan to use both a clear matt glaze, a clear shiny glaze and just oxides and also to leave the sgraffito bare in places to create different surfaces, textures and colours across my forms.

Last week I also did sketches for my chimney forms and planned out the designs that are going to be on their surfaces. However after making a prototype of a chimney form I realised that I didn’t like how stocky and wide my designs had become so I have now changed my forms to cylinders as I like the way they tower up and more subtly hint towards the chimneys of the industrial revolution. I would really like to make these cylinders of varying sizes, some as tall as me, and would like to create a large group of them so they create an ominous and entrapping atmosphere much like the living conditions and the cotton mills in the industrial revolution. 

These collages below, that I created, portray the kind of textures and colours I want my chimney forms to have with the images in amongst all of these textures.

Here are some sketches I did for my chimney forms before I decided they should be more cylindrical.