Working in Ceramics

I am taking classes in ceramics at Lighthouse Art Center while spending the winter in Florida. I am working mostly with handbuilding and underglazes which utilizes surface design. I really enjoy exploring another medium, especially creating images on 3D surfaces instead of using flat papers. I feel this stimulates my creative growth. 

The top pieces are created from slabs and the technique I used is image transfer where I paint the design on newsprint with slip and underglazes and print it onto the wet clay before it is fired. 

This technique is again working with underglazes but using stencils cut from newsprint, dampened and applied to the wet clay. I layer my underglazes and stencils to produce the shapes. I did learn that I need to use like colors, the blue over the orange neutralized because (orange and blue are complementary colors) creating some grays instead of the nice light blue I was trying for. 

This piece is also hand built but a small pinch pot. I first painted it in the Bermuda Green slip and let it dry. Then I carved into the wet clay to create the designs and then hand painted them with underglazes. 

These small cups are built from slabs and formed into cups, I added hand built handles. The green has Bermuda Green slip applied and the orange cup has Orange slip applied. I then hand painted the designs with the colored underglazes. 

I created this little dog who later lost his collar unfortunately because the clay was too brittle. He isn’t finished yet, I am looking for a special glaze for him. Here he poses with the studio cat Cheeto.