9 week Craic!

so for the next 9 weeks we are going to be in 3 different workshops. this week id the start of this and for these 3 weeks in going to be in the slip casting and moulding workshop. so far i have started on a mould of my little dog from my first project so im going to take it out of the hot press and see how it turned out. in the mean time im working on the lathe making a mould for a cup out of plaster.

marcus o mahony

today we got to meet a well known ceramicist marcus o mahony. the day wasn't too bad. it went relativly fast. for the morning he gave us a talk about himself and an introduction to his work:) after break we went down to the main studio and he gave us a demonstration on how he works, it was interesting, and gave me an insite into work myself, like the salt glazing technique he was talking about and also the whole set up of the woodfiring kiln..... now tomorrow its back into work. i've to set up clay recycling and start pugging it all out..FUN FUN!!!!!

new project

well better late then never but ya sooooo we got a new project there 2 weeks ago :/ ha. this project is similar to the last one except we got to look at our object. we got given an object at random so i was given a scrubbing brush. it was okay , tricky for the bristles but okay in general!! today then we had our assessments so fingers crossed on the results!!!!

new project brief

so we got through the first assessment so far, so now we've being given a new 2 week brief.. this brief is on the similar subject matter as the last one, except that we've being given an object at random and we have to use that to work with. i was given a dishes scrubbing brush, yes very exciting :/ anywho il get over that :P

SECOND YEAR :D

so im a bit delayed with the blog after the summer but hows ever :P.... have my first assessment today on our first brief.. the brief was to do with having to pick an animal at random, draw many sketches out of our heads without any research into our sketch books... so to strat off with mine i drew many different types of animals- from a hedgehog to a ostrich and then after it all finally a dog.. i characterised my dog so that he would be in running motion. once i had made all my draws of him, i then moved onto the paper making where i made little paper maquettes of these.. i spent a few days on the paper  and then in my final days of the project i went onto the  clay modelling of this animal.. at fist this was dificult as i wasn't able to master the ability to have him standing up.. eventually i got the hang of it, i let the clay harden over night then stood him upright , his legs then had a bit of balance and i also used a small wooden stick from the canteen, normally in use for the oul tea stirring. ha. so today we've the assessments on this project so hopefully all goes well!!!

My pieces FINITO . . . .

 

So i then with my cone, full of foam , brought the lot back up to the ceramics studio where i got a hot glue gun and stuck serveral of my indivual glazed pieces onto the cone...

so these pieces are my finished work. i greatly enjoyed doing these pieces and this narrative project and also in getting to explore my native home place a bit more.. :D

filling my ice cream cone ....... SPLAT!

so once all my pieces were glazed and fired and were taken out of the kiln i then moved onto my CONE :) so i went down beside the ceramics department with elaine and there we started, and we took out the expandable installation foam and started filling my ceramic ice cream cone piece.. this took a few hours for it to dry and expand(which it did, about 10x its size :/) but it was fun :D

 firstly i tried out some smaller cones as a little experiment....