20 January 2025

Trying to find ceramic relief artists is very difficult. Using stamps, or reliefs in creating pots and tableware etc, is a technique often used. I have only found one artist who paints the reliefs although Andrea Leigh paints the oxides on for a more detailed painting.

The tiles have been bisque fired and are ready for glazing. After talking things through with my tutor, I realised that last year I diluted the transparent glaze even more before I applied it to my relief work.

Even though I applied the oxides more uniformly on both tiles, they reacted differently on each tile during the firing process.

As you can see I poured the diluted glaze over the tiles and wiped off on one tile and left it on the other tile. This is testing to see which process produces a similar finish to the work I did last year.

13th January 2025

With the one on the left, I hadn’t wiped off enough of the glaze. With both of them I hadn’t applied the oxides strongly enough, although they have come through better in the one on the right.

I am trying to work out a process that is going to work, especially if this is part of my range of work I wish to offer customers in the future. There are so many variables that I have no control of in the firing processes that I need to ensure the preparation and how the materials are applied is as consistent as possible.

this time I used porcelain slip rather than white slip and applied the oxides more thickly and tried to ensure that the two tiles had the same colour coordination, or as similar as I could get them.

The tiles were then bisque fired.

7th January 2025

I’ve missed a post on one of the process steps, the tiles pictured below are after I had used white slip on the tiles and used oxides. The ones I use are ruttle, yellow ochre, red ochre, red iron oxide, and black iron oxide.

When I removed the lino from the tile above, I realised that I had forgotten to dust it with powder to stop it sticking and the didn’t dry the clay out enough before I pressed the lino in it.

The second press was better as I remembered the steps mentioned above. I then glazed them with earthenware transparent glaze. I wiped off a bit more on one than the other as part of the process.

9 December 2024

Before I started working in clay, I did another embossed paper image. This time I used more earthy colours, yellow ocher, burnt umber and raw sienna, with a little touch of black ink. I used a similar approach to how I applied oxides on my ceramic pieces last year and squirted water to direct the colour flow.

The process of producing work using lino is – print the images from it first, emboss any paper if I wish, and then use it for clay relief work. The clay is quite harsh on the lino.

I rolled out a slab of clay, I can get two A5 images from one slab.

Instead of using a roller and pressing hard, I used the tile press as the clay tiles were small enough to fit into the press.

As you can see from the image above there is a little seepage around the edges and these needed straightening and tidying up to create a nice looking tile.

2 December 2024

Last year I was experimenting with linocut pressed into clay. I decided to have a go at using making some plaster reliefs for the Vision Pop Up Shop.

To make the plaster reliefs I poured the plaster on the lino and the weight of the plaster as it settles sets into the crevices on the lino. I used a vaseline based gel over the lino so that I could pull it out of the plaster once it had set. The idea was for the portraits to be able to stand on a shelf without needing to be framed, make it more versatile and suitable for homes with not much hanging space on the walls. To enable them to do this I had to sand down the rough edges, level and smooth the edges and backs. This way they were able to be free standing but would also lie flat against a wall if someone wished to mount or hang them in some way.

My work on display at the pop up shop. I’m really pleased with how they look and my four prints look just as I envisioned them when I thought about how to display them.

26th November 2024

I have been experimenting with other ways to make images, that hint at what’s there and make you want to look deeper. I used the lasercut horse head image from last year to emboss some paper. I used my handmade cotton rag paper from Khadi.

I then used water colours to add colour to the embossed paper and experimented with different ways to apply the paints.

The way that worked best was applying wet on wet and spritzing the water to help it flow into the embossed image and give it a sense of movement.

19 November 2024

Every year the Art and Design students create work for a pop up shop. This years theme is Vision. I have really struggled to come up with something, trawling through my thousands of photographs of horses and friends at shows. I came across a photograph I had taken of my friends Border Terrier, Kauri. Kauri suffers from uveitis and has to wear special doggles to protect her eyes from sunlight. She has the most amazing pink pair and that’s how she’s ended up being my muse for Vision.

I have seen videos on instagram from other linocut printers that were in different colours using the jigsaw technique. I had the idea that the doggles would be a bright colour so I cut them out as a seperate piece of lino.

The test prints worked out very well. I had the idea to print them in four different colours and a limited run of each. I kind of have a pop art vision of them being displayed in a square on the wall.

20 November 2024

I love Christian’s work, especially his equestrian paintings. His earlier work is a little more realistic. I have enjoyed looking through the years on his website and seeing how his style has developed and emerged. Realism mixed with abstract and the feeling of a collage.

https://www.christianhook.com/wall

17 November 2024

Bizarrely I came across Liska whilst on a horse facebook group I’m in. I don’t think I will ever turn my art into a performance like she does, basically because I cannot dance as well as her! Her equestrian art is amazing. I watched a video of her painting whilst, dancing, and also having a horse and rider performing at the same time. I’m just leaving this post here because I felt her art. https://www.liskallorca.fr/

I am following her on social media I just find her way of working, emotional and her work so beautiful.

21 October 2024

I came across Lisa Fricker via facebook posts about women artists. https://lisafricker.com/SparkSite/the-artist.html

In her own words she likes to combine traditional depiction with painterly abstraction. She believes that the edges is where all the magic happens. Looking at her paintings on her instagram and website, I was drawn into the paintings and I would love to be as skilled as Lisa is at seemlessly melding the background into the portrait. I felt as though I was glimpsing something at the edge of my imagination trying to breakthrough.

Fireside” (2022) by Lisa Fricker,