Alternative Paper

Clay artists are very different than painters in many types of ways but they are not any different to their kind because they are both artists. I will be examing two types of artists. Clay vs. paint and what they both have in common. Both of these artists are world renowned and are excellent at what they create. So that is why I will be comparing and contrasting both of them. 

The first artist is Viola Frey. Viola Frey was an American artist who was a professor at California College of the Arts. Frey was born in August 15, 1933 in Lodi , CA and died in July 26, 2004 in Oakland, CA. Frey started in 1951 after she returned from high school she took classes at Stockton College. She received a scholarship from California and got her BFA in 1955 and traveled to New Orleans to continue her work. Her artistic characters include bold, abstract, and creative. One of her clay sculpture is named Fallen Man which was made in 1991. 

Her art pieces use a lot of multi-colored glazes that must have taken a long time to place in the right area. This piece looks like it could be as tall up to my hip. What I like about this piece is that it is creative in any way possible because of the way the man is painted and positioned. 

The next artist is Georgia O' Keefe. O' Keefe is also a world renowned artist for her landscape and nature paintings. O' Keefe was born and raised in Wisconsin in November 15, 1887 and she died in New Mexico on March 6, 1986.  She attended the Art Institute of Chicago at the age of 18 in 1905, and later attended the Arts Student League in 1907.  She would make travel time to New Mexico for paintings and when her husband Alfred Stieglitz died she made New Mexico her permanent home in 1949.  In the 1950s, O'Keefe began traveling internationally, she made pieces that evoked a sense of feeling at places like Peru, and Japan's Mount Fuji.  Her artistic characteristics are down to earth, friendly, and natural. One of her famous pieces Purple Petunias was made in 1925. 

This piece is very neutral because of how it creates contrast of the light and dark colors. I really like this piece because it creates a nice movement around the flower and takes up the negative space. 

These artists are different in various ways. Frey is more bold and shows more artistic values while O'Keefe is more down to earth and sticks to the more natural looks. Frey creates ideas that are more out of the box and make a statement about what she wants everyone to know what she creates and I like that she puts herself out there like that. While O' Keefe creates art that goes with the environment and tries to tell us that nature is beautiful and we should be preserving it. They both have a distinct touch to every piece which I really enjoy because it tells us that they are not just some regular artist they are different from everyone else. They both have ideas that tell a story and I like that because I don't like looking at art that doesn't have a meaning behind it because it won't make sense to me. 

Both of these artists are different in their own way and that's okay and it separates them from everyone else but they live in a world where everyone is special in their own way. But what I like about these two is how they express their statements in various ways. Clay vs. Paint don't make a difference because it is still art and it tells a story in every piece created. 

Container with lid

For the container in this piece it is simply a simple cup with a lid on top. The process of the cup started back in October when I started on the wheel. The wheel took me a while to master and Mrs. Kolesa helped me a bunch and none of the pieces would work out. But one day that happened and I saved the cup and put it in the supply closet. And when it came to my injury I couldn't go on the wheel until later this May.  And when it came down to the last 4 weeks of school I was in need of a project and I couldn't throw on the wheel so when I looked in the closet and when I found the cup I touched it up and now it is ready to be fired. 

 This piece is a very balanced artwork, because not only is the container plain but it doesn't have too much going on around and I really like that because it shows balance. 

Abstract

     My abstract piece is based off the famous book and book series "Harry Potter". There is a famous symbol from the Harry Potter series that I took inspiration from and I wanted to make a circle tray. This is what the symbol looks like.

So what I did with the tray was I rolled out a piece of slab and I used a circle tracer and I used a pen tool to cut around the circle. My original idea was to make the triangle on the inside and the circle on the outside and that is what the circle base is for. But I just stuck with the original idea and for the triangle I used a pen tool to trace the triangle. Once I traced the triangle then I actually drew it in, and then I drew the circle inside the traingle. And to take up the negative space I added a quote from the series, " I solemny swear that I am up to no good" but since the triangle took up most of the room I had to shorten the quote to say "I am up to no good". 

This abstract piece has the principals of emphasis, because of how the piece focuses on the triangle in the center and it also shows movement because of how the piece makes your eyes look at the quote then at the center. I am proud of this piece because I threw it all together last minute and there might be some rough edges but I like how it was made and detailed. 

My choice

This piece was my own choice and what the piece was is a simple tray but in the center there is a traced star fish in the center with lots of line work around the star fish. I started off with just a simple slab roll and my first idea was to create something from the sea so I started off with a regular fish but then I had gotten the idea of creating a star fish tray and I just went with it.  I used an outline of a star fish in the center then I just had to create some thin lines around it to use up the negative space.

When it went into the kiln I had to think of some glaze ideas if I wanted a high fire or a regular glaze. I went with a regular gloss glaze because I wanted to have it ready before the end of the year and I chose the gloss glaze Royal Blue and put 3 coats on then once that dried I coated it with a clear glaze so the firing wouldn't damage the glaze.

 This piece has some line work element because of the lines outside the star fish as it takes up the negative space. There also seems to be some emphasis around the star fish because that is where my eye focuses on the most throughout the whole piece. Some other principles throughout this piece are balance because it brings the piece together and another principal is rhythm because of the repeating line work. 

I am not that impressed because it was something quick to make up some of my passed assignments that I have not done yet. The glaze colors look really nice on the piece and I am proud of what it turned out to be after the kiln and firing. 

Tray for May

My tray for may piece first started out as a ying yang tray that I have been working on for two classes then when it was set out to dry it had cracked so I tried to slab the two pieces back together but they wouldn't stay together so I had to start over. Now my new tray for may is a rolled out design with a high fire glaze topping. For the tray all I did was roll out a piece of clay and I made it a thick tray, then I took a design roll stamp and rolled the design onto the tray and when that was done I laid it out to dry.  The two high fire glazes that I used were Dark Green and Artic Blue 

This piece offers the principals of variety because of the repeated patterns, balance because it brings the piece together, and unity because of the way the whole piece ties together. 

I am overall impressed by this piece because of how bad the start was and how time consuming that it took for the one piece then when it started cracking I lost hope but then I just needed to create something really quick and I'm impressed with the high firing glazes that I chose. 

Principal Piece

This is my principal piece that I have worked on for 5 weeks. The idea of this piece was to create a movement design while making it look presentable in a way. I started out with a slab of clay and I created a pinch bowl and I just worked it up to the size I wanted. I had to clean up the bottom edges  to create a different bottom. I used glazes like transparent pearl, orange, sky blue, red and I just added dots onto the bowl. The use for this bowl is for any small function like rings, or money.

Masterpiece

                                 

I chose  Blue Mornjng Glories by Georgia OKeefe and I chose it because I really loved how the piece is simple but yet elegant and I challenged myself to this because I wanted to see what I could do. I started out with a rolled out slab and I used to get the bowl shape for the piece. It took a couple of tries but it worked out nice and when the bowl was done I scored and slipped some pieces of flower petals. When it was slipped the petals started to crack but I used an underglaze to keep it together.
I used Peacock Low Fire Gloss for the bowl, Turquoise  Underglaze for the flower and Lemon gloss for the detailing part of the flower and once I finished the glaze I used a clear gloss to finish it out. OKeefe's piece shows a drawing of a blue flower and in the middle has a yellow tone and the flower has a contrast with the dark blue and light blue. The principals of the piece is movement because I look around the whole piece for every detail, balance because the flower blends together, contrast because of the dark versus the light colors. The meaning of this piece is how OKeefe highlights the modern day artist's in a painting to create amazing artwork. The piece highlights OKeefe's background with nature and it brings out her light side in the piece. Her piece and mine are very different because I don't use as much detailing as she does but it is not bad for me. If I could fix anything I would try to balance out the bowl and have the same measurements for the flowers.