More Wheel Throwing and Handbuilding Stuff!

Today I was able to take home two pieces that were fired last week. The little shot glass and cup were covered in a low-fire glaze, amber and purple, but unfortunately my other pieces that were not covered in the low-fire glaze were not ready to take home. Apparently the kiln with those pieces in it had been turned off, which really sucks. I was super excited to see how they came out but I'll have to wait until next week. At least these two are done!

The shot glass...thing...was an experimental piece I did when a cylinder I was throwing collapsed on itself. I decided to salvage what I could and make something tiny and cute.

I made sure to glaze the insides.

This is a bowl my friend Tamika made. It's super pretty!

Got to glaze my horse head today. I chose to use a black, low-fire glaze on the mane.

And then I used the amber low-fire glaze for the body. Can't wait to see how it looks next week.

This is a bowl that my professor made with another student, but she wanted me to glaze it for her.

I chose to use a blue (yes, the white glaze turns blue once it's fired).

Then, I put black glaze on top (again, yes, the red glaze you see here is going to turn black once it it done being fired).

Second Internship Opportunity

So instead of sitting on my butt waiting for the MNCPPC to call me back I reached out to a family friend who works at Belair Mansion, a local historic site here in Maryland. It's a mansion that was built in 1745, home to Samuel Ogle, and was known for race-horse breeding.

Next week I plan to meet with the supervisor and basically conduct yet another interview. She already has some projects in mind but I wont know what she wants me to do until I meet with her. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. Working in a museum has always been something I've wanted to do because of my liking for Art History and anything related to the 18th century.

Hopefully I'll enjoy my time working for the city!

Internship Possibility

As of right now I don't have an internship, but in the beginning of May I was interviewed for one by the MNCPPC Arts and Cultural Heritage Division. The interview went fairly well despite it being a little informal (which isn't bad, I just didn't feel like I was talking to a stuffy business person). I was asked about myself, what I enjoyed doing, where I see myself in the future, and what I would like to accomplish with an internship.

After we were done with the interview we chatted a bit about art and sharing art with communities. I brought up my love for Art History somewhere in the conversation and that was when I was told to go check out the Brentwood Arts Exchange. So I did. There, I met the director and had a second, very impromptu, interview. Here I learned to always carry hard copies of my resume with me...

And now, here I am, still waiting to hear back from the MNCPPC.
Fingers crossed!

Since this post is boring, here is a picture of a painting I did last year for my boyfriend.

Studio Ghibli styled screencap from Princess Mononoke in acrylic paint.

Wheel Throwing & Hand Building Projects

During my Spring 2015 semester I took a wheel throwing class for 8 weeks. I had taken the hand-building class during the previous semester and it was there I found out how much fun it was to work with clay. Wheel throwing wasn't on the same level of fun but it was an awesome experience.
First off, I am terrible at wheel throwing. Centering the clay is still beyond difficult for me. Centering is something that just takes practice, and lots of it. One day I'll get it right.
I'm more of a hand-builder anyway...

In the mean time, here is a short post about some of the pieces I threw (and some of the sculpture pieces I made for other classes).

This is one of the few cylinders I threw that was actually pretty close to being 100% centered. Right now it's about to be put into the kiln again (yesterday I was able to glaze it after it's first 50+ hours in the kiln).

Here are the other cylinders I made, and a horse from the hand-building class.

Obvious imperfections on the horse head but it's pretty cute. And it was my first time sculpting, along with the bust below (part of my Portrait and Figure Sculpting class).

It's special. 

Profile self-portrait.

This is a cat.

Whimsical Venetian Faun Mask

The inspiration for this particular mask came from the movie Pan's Labyrinth. In the movie, there is a character known as the faun. He's actually pretty creepy looking, but I found him quite enchanting. Here's a picture of how he is depicted in the movie.

 Kind of cool, right?

Anyway, I decided to make a half-mask with horns as my final project. Here is a link to the tutorial I used to help me with the plaster part of the mask: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Plaster-Mask

It was very helpful!

But before I did any of the plastering, I made the horns first. I used a thick wire used for jewelry making as my base and wrapped tin foil around it. I kept adding more foil until I was happy with the thickness. Then, to keep the horns together, I used masking tape. 

All done with the horns for now.

The next part was to start making the actual mask. I used plaster strips found at my local craft store. This part is where the tutorial comes in handy. I called my best friends - Rachel and Stephanie - over to help me out. We decided to use Rachel as the model for the mask.

It was easier to have her lay down on the floor for easier clean up. Here are her selfies from her experience. (Use more Vaseline than you think is necessary. We learned the hard way. RIP Rachel's skin.)

"Is the pain over yet?"

It's over.

It took about 12 hours for the mask to feel completely dry. Once I felt it was dry enough I wet some more strips to place over the eye areas and around the edges. Since it was only 1-3 layers it took less time to dry, so I then went ahead and outlined what I wanted to cut off/out.

I used an exacto knife and a box cutter because I was too lazy to go out and buy carving tools. It took patience and literally an hour and a half to cut through all the plaster.

After sanding down the edges and putting gesso on the plaster, I tapped on the horns.

Once the horns were in place I put one more layer of plaster on the mask and all over the horns to make sure they would stay in place. Plaster dries pretty hard but it's very fragile. I had some cracks show up but I painted over them with modge podge.

For the horns to look like they were actually horns, I got the idea from a youtube video to use yarn as the grooves. You gently wrap the yarn around the horn and then paint on a layer of modge podge then let it dry. I used about 3 layers of modge podge to seal the yarn in place.

I let the mask sit overnight again to make sure the modge podge was dry. The next day I took out my paints and went to work. My idea was for this faun to be from an ancient forest, so the main colors I wanted to use were green, gold, and brown. Since it's a Venetian mask I simply had to use some glitter and jewels.

To make the horns appear aged, I sponged on metalic gold paint. Doing so made the grooves become highlighted. I used black paint under each groove to make them cast a shadow, adding more depth onto the horns. 

Here I drew thin lines with a gray marker. These lines are where I wanted to place my glitter. To do so I used a thin brush with modge podge and sprinkled the glitter over the design.

The jewels were stick on jewels bought from my local craft store. After they were in place I used modge podge yet again to seal them into place.

I decided I wanted to use feathers. I had bought a long strip of feathers sewn together and hot glued said strip onto the back of the mask. My intention was to have them fan out behind the mask but the feathers were so stiff. The only way they fan out is when the mask is being worn.

And that's it. Pretty easy~

·Who are you: name, major? Alisanna House, Fine Arts major.

·Why did you choose this project? After watching Pan's Labyrinth and being in total awe of the faun character, I thought "How cool would it be to make a mask with horns?" So basically, I wanted to do something with horns since I had never made anything with horns before. Or with plaster. 

·How much time did it take? Mmm...I think it took maybe 2 and a half weeks to make. I had to spread everything out because plaster doesn't dry quickly. 

·How much did it cost? I had to buy more green paint and I wanted to be adventurous with metallic paint so it came to about $45 in total. Glitter isn't as cheap as I thought, either.

·What was the biggest challenge? Sanding the plaster was hard. Trying to make the horns even in width and length was hard, too. Definitely trying not to hurt my friends face was a challenge. At least her eyebrows are safe.

·If you had it to do over, what would you do differently? More Vaseline! I also would make the eye shape more symmetrical and even. As i said in class, I think making the feathers by hand would be a fun thing to attempt.