The first assignment in Ceramics was making stamps. I made six stamps with the following designs:
- Raindrop
- Big initials
- Small initials
- Dragonfly
-Ankh
- Fish Skeleton
I made these stamps with 612 clay, by rolling coils, cutting them into segments, then customizing the individual stamps.
This picture was taken in the stamp's greenware state- unfortunately, some are fliped over so in the picture the designs are un recognizable. After the first firing, I decided to glaze the stamps using the Deep Sienna Speckle Amaco glaze, but they were lost and I did not get the chance to take pictures of the final result.
I used the Deep Sienna Speckle glaze on this face, but forgot to take pictures of the final result after bringing it to my dads house (so more pictures are to be added to this page reguarding this piece in the future.)
After finishing the stamps, I sculpted a Machete of a man's face. In the past, when I made faces, they always seemed flat, so my goal with this piece was to enhance the facial features to be more exaggerated.
Using 612 clay, I began to work out the basic features of a face on an oval. To follow through with my goal of creating exaggerated features, I decided to make the nose prominent and followed through with this idea by completely over-exaggerating every feature so I would work them down to a realistic degree. I eventually used a fettling knife to separate the face from the oval block and hollowed the underside with a loop tool.
There are still a good amount of things I could have done better with this piece in the sculpting process. Firstly, I had made multiple attempts to sculpt the ears, however, even after making the first ear that I was happy with, sculpting a second ear that looks the same was a challenge that I gave up on. In the future- I hope to pace myself, and whatever my next face may be, I do not want to cheat out of making the ears.
Furthermore, I am still feeling the flatness of the side profile, even after finishing the piece. Although the nose gives the side profile dimension- the chin and the forehead are at the same height, making the rest of the face seem one dimensional compared to the nose.
