And the Experimenting Continues...

In addition to experimenting with new sculptural forms and attempting to make plates and cups, I've also been working on glazes and surface. (Yes, it's been quite a month!)

While I absolutely love many of my current cone 04 low fire glazes, I have still been itching to develop the surface a bit more. I'm hoping for visual depth and crunchy, textured surface areas.

So, I started by adding texture to slabs with various found objects and then cut them into 4" and 6" square tiles.

Then, I covered the whole surface with 3 layers of terra sigillata. (Whoops forgot to snap a photo here.)

Next came brushing on underglazes and colored slips before scratching/drawing into the surface with needle tool. After the drawing was done, I went back over a few areas with some slip trailing. Here they are pre-bisque firing...

Here's some post-bisque firing...

After the bisque fire, I layered several of my current sculptural glazes, brushing them on with a more painterly approach. Pre-cone 04 glaze firing...

After firing to cone 04...

And I've got another set of tiles in the kiln now. Cant wait to unload it tomorrow!

Still haven't figured out how I will incorporate this surface into my sculptural work, but that will come with time and more experimenting. Here's a little piece I made to see how the surface would wrap around a 3D form.

(Note: This piece is also a scaled down version of the first sculpture I made during my residency here in Missoula. Thought a smaller, maquette-like piece would help me resolve some of my technical problems. We'll see...)

Until later!

Meagan