This is part of my prototype clay postcard after it was bisque fired in the kiln and will be part of a promotional piece for Digital Imaging, which is part of my Foundation Degree. We were asked to create a promotional piece but in a quirky way. As I had worked in clay before I thought it would be a different way of doing it. Once it has been glaze fired I will scan the image onto an Apple Mac so that I can produce paper or card copies that can be given out to promote our StudioFour Gallery.
I decided to start with the hearts on Carol's section. Hearts feature in a lot of Carol's textile art and she also loves the colour red, so I thought it a good place to start putting the body stains on to the clay. I had asked all the girls Michelle Stringer, Louise Knight and Carol Newton what colours they wanted so I chose colours that closely represented what they wanted. The body stains look lighter after they have dried onto the clay and don't always represent the colour that is seen at his stage as they alter during the glaze firing stage. Once the body stain is applied it is important to rub some of it off with a wet sponge to help create texture, light and shade to add depth.
Michelle likes the colours blue, beige, tans and rusts. I used a Cornflower blue and painted some Rutile over it to create a blend of the two colours as I've had success with this technique before.
Louise creates quirky building from the places she has visited and I wanted to try to capture and essence of that for this piece of work. I applied Turquoise body stain to her name making sure to apply plenty in the indentations of the letters and then wiping the excess away with a damp sponge.
This is the finished part of Louise's section. I added Manganese Dioxide for the buildings and again rubbed off the excess. For the buildings in the background I added Slate Grey to create the illusion of distance and Rutile to the doors on the bottom left hand side.
As can be seen here Michelle's part is taking shape. I used Azure blue to the top left hand side, Rutile for her name, Red for textured areas, Turquoise and Tan. Michelle like to use texture in her work, so although there is no specific scene to look at, I wanted to represent various textures in an abstract way.
For Carol's section I used Cornflower Blue, Turquoise, Red, Leaf Green, Rutile, Azure Blue and Egg Yellow. Because Carol uses textiles and threads in her work I have used various found objects to imprint into the clay, which I've tried to enhance with the body stains and how I've applied them.
Colour and texture play an important role in my artwork. I used a variety of found object to imprint into my section of the clay postcard to reflect my style including a bit of landscape. I'm not as pleased with this part of the postcard as it was the last one I worked on before bisque firing took place, so it appears to me not to be as cohesive as it could have done.
I used Lilac for the letters, Emerald Green, Leaf Green Turquoise, Red, Azure Blue, Mazarine Blue and I blended Egg Yellow and Red to create a Orange.
For the centre of the postcard i used Black body stain which replicates our background on our Studio. I rubbed of some of it to reveal the texture. I left the letters untouched by the body stains although it was tricky and had to clean them out with a fine brush and water to remove the excess.
Here is the final piece before the transparent glaze was added. I'm quite pleased with the overall look. The colours will be darker than they are in this photograph. This took about 3 hours to complete due to deciding on colours, applying them and then using a sponge to clean excess away. this is time consuming as the sponge has to be re-soaked and squeezed after each wiping as you re-apply the stain if it is not cleaned.
These final images were taken after I had dipped it into a bath of Transparent glaze. I had applied liquid wax to the bottom of the clay postcard, which repels the glaze. This has to be wiped off with a damp sponge because the glaze would stick to the kiln shelf and potentially ruin your work. Any small holes in the drying glaze can be rubbed into or spots of fresh glaze dropped on to it to give an even coverage.
