Sunday, May 31, 2015

Final Exam

Do over: If given the opportunity, which project would you do over? Describe why and how you would redo this project. Reasons might include choosing a different theme, using a different medium or creating a different idea completely. Include photo.

If I could do a project again, I would redo the foil saggar piece. I would redo this piece because I wasn't very happy with the look of the clay piece itself. Since it turned out to be very difficult to do what I wanted with it, I settled with a simplified version of my original idea, but it didn't look as nice as i'd hoped. If I were to redo this project, I would have made a larger and simpler piece like a vase so the texture from the foil saggar would stand out more. I would have also used the pottery wheel to make my piece since I have never used one before and want to use one at some point.




What is a technique you used in your artwork that worked well? Explain what technique it was and why it was successful.


A technique that I used that worked well was melting the glass bottles in the kiln. I didn't think we would be able to do this at first because glass melts at a very high temperature, but the kiln gets hot enough to melt it. I really like the way that the glass didn't totally melt into a liquid, but it softened and folded in on itself. That made the piece look really cool because you can still see the texture in the bottles even after they've melted down flat over each other.You can also still see the separation of the bottles and the fold lines from where they melted.





Which project was your most successful? Describe the theme and or topic and the process you went through to complete the project.


My most successful project was my dwellings project. I hot-glued three art textbooks together and started cutting out pages to hollow the inside of the books and make them into a house. Even though it isn't finished yet, I really like the look of the door and windows in the front of the house and I think i'll really like it when the windows in the back of the house are done and you can see all the way through the books. It took a long time to cut through the books so I don't know how much farther i'm going to go with this piece, but if I finish it I think it will look really good.






Sketchbook: pick any warm-up from your sketchbook that you found beneficial, interesting or simply felt you handled well. Describe the activity and reason for selecting it above the others. Include photo.



The Illustration Friday I chose was the most recent one, Melt. The reason I chose this was that this was the first time I had drawn something transparent (an ice cube) and I feel that I learned a lot in doing it. I like looking at the piece as well because you can tell what it is immediately and your eyes can picture it in 3d. I feel like this is one of the best pieces I've done in pencil, even though it's small, because it is a piece that looks realistic and detailed.







Regardless of whether you liked or disliked a project, which one did you learn, grow, or developed the most from? Please explain.

The project that I learned the most from was the vessel piece. I learned the most from that because I made it by flattening out a piece of clay, then cutting shapes out of the clay, and cutting those clay pieces into a 3D shape. It was an interesting technique that I learned a lot about, and I think it went pretty successfully. This is a technique that I will probably use on the future while doing more things with clay.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Foil Saggar Piece

The idea I had for the Foil Saggar piece was to make a bowl, but cut out the top to make it look like fire. When I tried carving out the top like this, it didn't shape like I wanted and just looked like the bowl had a jagged rim. I still wanted to incorporate fire so I carved the shape I wanted into the side of the bowl.

When the piece was fired, it added an interesting and random pattern of dark and light areas. I didn't really like how the project turned out, but that was because I didn't really like the clay piece I used to start with. If I did this project again, I would make a larger piece with less details in it so the foil saggar effects would be more pronounced.