Wednesday 21 January 2009

This Week's Classes

I have nothing to show from this week's clay class - I continued working on my vase, ready to decorate with sgraffito. I didn't seem to get very much done this week, probably because I spent far too much time talking! One of the students brought in a book by Jo Connell entitled The Potter's Guide to Ceramic Surfaces, and I spent some time looking through that. From what I saw, it's a lovely book with lots of techniques, some of which I haven't seen before, so I think I may order this book.

On Tuesday I had my drawing and painting class with Anita. As usual, I was being completely rebellious and decided to do my own thing instead of sticking to the lesson plan! In my defence, I am not the only student that does this, and Anita is happy for us to go off in our own direction if we want to. I was really in the mood for doing a mixed media thing, with collage and colour, something along the lines of Rosa's and Kathy's work. I took my black pen along, but didn't use it in the end. I decided to make a piece inspired by Kathy's Daylight Over the Jemez piece, using the materials I had available to me - namely coloured tissue paper and loo roll!

Firstly I glued toilet paper over the surface of the A4 heavyweight paper. At this point I don't think I really knew what I was doing yet! Then I started gluing on the coloured tissue paper, and another layer of toilet paper on top of that.


Then it was a trip to the toilet to dry it off under the hand dryer, before starting to add colour with pastels!


I wasn't really happy about that little brown mountain in the middle, but one of the students suggested I turn it into a wigwam, which I think worked.


I still might fiddle with this a little bit, but I think it's mostly finished now. Any tips are very welcome. Thank you Kathy for being such an inspiration!


Next post - I got another blog award from Leanne! Thank you Leanne! I will be passing it on in my next post!

6 comments:

Leanne Pizio said...

Hey Linda!
Love the collage/pastel. It was fun to see it in process and I found myself liking the piece both before the pastels and after the pastels. Interesting using tp(toilet paper). I have never heard of that. Love the effect.
I am sorry I didn't get back to you last week. Any chance we can reschedule for next week?

The Bunny Maker said...

You're kidding! Your blog has snow???
or is my computer messing with me?

There are little white bits coming down the page - tell me how you did it!! or have I just been staring at my lappy too long and my eyes are seeing things!

Undaunted said...

Thank you Leanne! Yeah, I know toilet paper is a bit strange, but they didn't have normal tissues or paper towels. I should have taken a photo after I dried it and before adding the pastels - it was whiter then, with the tissue being dry.

No worries about last week - stuff happens :) Any Wednesday is usually good for me, but for this week coming Thursday would be better.


Hehehe, no it's not your eyes Half an Acre, my blog has snow!! You want some too? I got it from here. Enjoy!

Kathy L said...

Linda,
your piece is lovely! HeHe, I have used TP too, it works just fine! The wigwam was true inspiration! Very clever indeed. Overall, I like the piece better than mine...and I am so flattered that you took a bit of inspiration from this old girl :) I thought I was seeing things too with the snow but now I am going to check it out!

k

Anonymous said...

The tissue paper collages are very cool - I love the technique because it really gives a nice texture and depth of layering. Sounds like class is fun too!

Undaunted said...

Oh Kathy, thank you so much! What a compliment! But obviously I prefer yours! That misty look and the colours are beautiful.


I love the texture too Cynthia. Yes, I'm looking forward to this terms classes, we will be using colour more often this time I think.