My Studio Space

4th year is proving to be a challenge, especially when you have to balance the love of creating work with writing a Dissertation. I got a good start writing my dissertation at the beginning of the semester, however once I got stuck in to my studio work I abandoned it for months and now have to pick up where I started, so much for having the bloody thing done before Christmas.

I can't wait to return to my studio after Christmas knowing that my Dissertation is out of my hands and I have all the time in the world to devote to my studio practice. So far this has been my most enjoyable and productive year, I think this has to do with the fact that it is my last year here at Duncan of Jordanstone and I am utilizing as many of the facilities as I possibly can. I am going to deeply miss University life but I am also looking forward to becoming an artist out in the big bad world. 

I am glad to finally have a new blog and a long over due update. 

Castle of Wallies

Black Wax and Ceramic Teeth.

Mouth Of Hell

Wax, Wax Pigment, Wood and Tinted Resin.

Tame the Beast

Acrylic Paint, Oil pastel, Ink, Linseed Oil and Oil Bar

Provider

Lithography Print

Fears

Acrylic Paint, Oil pastel and Oil Paint.

Reaching Hands

Ceramics, Acrylic paint, Oil paster and Oil paint.

Robyn

Acrylic Paint, Crayon, Oil Pastel and Ink

Tin Tower

Tin Foil, Grout, Ink and Acrylic paint

Geez Yer Head

Metal, ink and Acrylic Paint.

Mr Peggy

Acrylic Paint, plaster, ink and oil bar

Law Hill

Lithography print

8 Union Terrace

I  made the table myself in this piece, including the legs which I made using a lathe. The pots are made from found materials, plasticine, nuts and hair.

Rest in Peace

Ceramics, Hay, Canvas and found material 

Ceramics

This semester I have learnt another skill. Making ceramic sculptures and forms have been great, I hope to continue to work within this department next semester because I have ideas to make huge ceramic forms and to also incorporate them within paintings. 

The Ceramics department struggles for funding because not enough students use it. I can't stress enough what a fantastic skill ceramics is to have, I wish I had discovered it years ago. I hope to continue to create ceramic sculptures after I graduate and to perhaps join a workshop.

These are a few test bowls and sculptural forms that I created.

I now have these sculptures in my flat, I loved learning how to use different glazes for these pieces and they were just fun to make. My ideas for next semesters ceramic sculptures are a bit more darker than this, I want to create distorted figure like forms to play and almost interact with other sculptures in the space, I want the sculptures to give off a feeling of uneasiness but also of humour at the same time as I want them to almost look comical.

Wax Circle

I have become fond of using wax and as a material it is also very dream like, in the sense that it will eventually disappear. I like the idea of my sculptures having this sort of limited life.

I constructed a large wooden circle and filled the inside with wax, I had to pour it in slowly and gradually to prevent any ripples and bumps, I wanted a smooth even surface because I want to carve a drawing in to it and fill the negative space with tinted resin. I wanted the resin to perhaps read as liquid wax in contrast to the dry wax.

I had left over black wax from making the castle piece so I used it to fill the edge of the circle. I then used Linocut tools to carve out the image. The image represents childhood fears that occur in dreams. I still have dreams about clowns so I illustrated a recurring dream that I have of a clown juggling over the mouth of hell. In the dream I get eaten by the mouth of hell. 

I will update a picture of the finished piece in a later update.

The Start Of a Castle

I have been revolving my work around recurring dreams and one that I often have is about me climbing up a castle, once reaching the top all my teeth would fall out due to exhaustion. I came up with this idea during summer to create a black wax castle and to use ceramic teeth at the top to sit in a pile. The wax castle has proved to be my most ambitious project yet, I underestimated the amount of work and time that had to be put in. It took me months to complete the final piece, but it was really worth the pain.

This is an image of the castle at an early stage, I had to make the main form in clay and then cast it in plaster. The top of the castle had to be made in a separate rubber cast because it would be too fragile if it was also cast in plaster and would likely break. 

This is the sculpture in its plaster form. It took around 8 layers of thick plaster to create this shell round the clay form and then sanding it down to make the surface smooth so it would be easier to handle

The cast was too large for two people to carry so we had to use a machine to lift it off the floor and in to a tub of water so that the clay would soften and come out the cast easily  The cast had to stay in the tub of water over night.

The tub that held the sculpture over night

The clay came out well, at this stage I had to empty the tub and clean out all the clay.

Nice and clean.

My tutor Phong helped me strengthen the cast with more plaster. We then attached metal clips to the sides to stop the wax from pouring out when we poured it in. 

It was important to pour the wax in from the bottom so we tipped the cast upside down and then we melted the wax and dyed it black.

I will post a picture of the final piece in a later post.

Learning Stone Lithography

This year I thought that I would try some different forms of printing. I was then asked by Mark my printing teacher if I would be interested in trying out some stone lithography in a group of others who were also interested. The process and the quality looked really appealing and intriguing so I thought I would give it a go. 

First impressions were really promising. There was a short introduction to the process and how to clean and prepair a stone for printing. The process turned out to be very long and repetitive but at the same time highly enjoyable.  It was a real learning curve, I learnt how to prepair the stone with  Arabic Gum, how to mix different acids to bring out the tones in the grease materials that we had to use to draw with.

Drawing on the stone was enjoyable, the only problem was that you couldn't rub it out because the stone picked up grease. I have to admit, I wasn't very happy with my drawing as it was my first one. The surface was really smooth to draw on, for this print I used ink and a grease based pencil. 

We were then demonstrated the correct way to print from a stone which we all drew on as a test. 

This is how my print turned out. I like the grainy texture that has came through to the surface by the grain of the stone. I'm not a big fan of the drawing but it was a great technique to learn. I don't think that I will do another stone lithography print any time soon because I work quite instantly and quickly, the repetitive nature to preparing the stone frustrated me a lot. I have been working a lot with waterless lithography which has a similar quality to the stone prints and is a lot faster and instant. 

This is a close up so you can see the grainy quality that came through in the dark areas due to the stone not having a smooth enough finish.