Sunday, June 19, 2011

New work







I have had a couple of heads sitting waiting for some attention . I modelled them  after reading how Tom Bartel makes hollow sculptures by coiling the head instead of working and modelling a solid head and later hollowing the head at the  leather hard stage.
At the time I was waiting for the Mary MacKillop commission to be agreed upon, so I made these two heads to try out the coiling idea.
The first was trying to make a head that was pleasant.
The second one I had been playing around with the thoughts of portraying ecstasy as portrayed in "Bernini's St Cecilia", so I had eyes closed and mouth slightly open.



I always wanted to glaze them with colour and so I finally decided to give each one a theme. 
Test plate trying out underglazes



The first I called it "Spring" and I intended to paint spring flowers all over the head with underglazes. The second one, because of the expression, I thought it would be good as "Autumn". I had collected a whole lot of  beautifully shaped fallen yellow leaves from some Gincko trees outside UNISA in the city and they had appealed to me so I drew them all over the second head, painted with underglazes and fired it with a clear glaze at 1100c oxidation. I forgot to photograph it before I glazed it.


I was disappointed with the results as I used a painterly approach and the underglazes really did not blend.
I have painted the second head and need to use the club glaze as I haven't enough glaze left in the bucket.
So I haven't fired it yet.
What do you think of the result? I would like to put them in an upcoming Art Show but "Autumn " is a little confronting.

3 comments:

Linda Starr said...

I love both of these especially the colors on the first one.

judsculpt said...

Hi Linda, Thanks for the comment,I thought it looked very messy the way the piece fired.I need more practice with the brush before i tackle the real thing.

Anna said...

like them very much,good luck