The first stage of clay is slip. Slip is watery clay; it is most often used to "slip and score", which I used to attach the features of the mug to the mug itself.
The second stage of clay is wet. Wet is moist, very plastic clay. Wet is the type of clay I love to use, just because it feels so fresh, and because it is moist enough that I don't have to soften it with water.
The third stage of clay is leather hard. Leather hard is the stage my mug was in after being left on the shelf for twenty-four hours or so. It is easier to cut but very difficult to sculpt.
The fourth stage of clay is greenware. Greenware is completely dry clay that is fragile and breakable. I would say that greenware is an overdose of leather hard for the clay. In other words, leaving clay out for a longer amount of time can turn leather hard clay into greenware.
The fifth stage of clay is bisque. This is the clay after its first firing. If it was grey clay, it is now white in this stage. It is now completely hard and no longer soft in any way. Bisque, luckily, is only one stage away from glaze...
The sixth stage of clay is glaze. This is the final firing and results in a smooth texture and a shiny look. I loved the way my glaze came out. While I was painting the mug, it was more of a ruddy red-brown but when it glazed, it turned out to be this beautiful spotted green.
This is a drawing of the ocean. It shows all the different zones of the ocean. It also shows animals that live in those zones. At the top is the sunlight zone. Next is the twilight zone. After that is the midnight zone. The last is the abyssal zone.
In fact, she [Mummy] said after a while, we have gone into hibernation. Nobody can get in any longer and no one can get out!
I looked carefully at her and understood that we were saved. At last we were absolutely safe and protected.
This menacing snow had hidden us inside in the warm for ever and we didn't have to worry a bit about what went on there outside. I was filled with enormous relief, and I shouted, I love you I LOVE YOU, and took all the cushions and threw them at her and laughed and shouted and Mummy threw them all back and in the end we were lying on the floor just laughing.
Then we began our underground life. We walked around in our nighties and did nothing. Mummy didn't draw. We were bears with pine needles in our stomachs and anyone who dared come near our winter lair was torn to pieces. We were lavish with the wood, and threw log after log on to the fire until it roared.
Sometimes we growled. We let the dangerous world outside look after itself, it had died, it had fallen out into space. Only Mummy and I were left.
- Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson
#dailydrawing #tovejansson
This one is important to me. I had been having a very long dry spell, not making any art, and then one day last Fall, while on a road trip, camping in Mesa Verde park, I drew this using some copic grey scale brush markers and a fine liner, and it was like my vision was returning. I got really into seeing, and imagining ... Anyway since then I've still been struggling to make more work, but have been making more creative things when I do get productive, and been organizing older work... It's also interesting that I titled this piece Phase Transition back in Nov '23, and subsequently had quite a sea change of life experiences, adventure, and new visions. Now if I could just sit down and draw more...
The materials that Meir uses in her works are not of the refined and so she is called an “arte povere” artist. At times she describes her work as someone dealing in alchemy - work develops as in a trial laboratory with different techniques and materials. She says, “ at times the artistic work process is a sort of puzzle demanding the filling in of all the empty squares “.
Some of her work focuses on women, and they incorporate criticism and cultural protest.
Meir has strong opinions about recycling and environmental protection that is represented in her works by use of materials and shapes. In her work she reacts to contemporary art that communicates with the eco system, waste, and she also searches for different worlds. Her works are made up of layers upon colorful layers that when we look at them it becomes clear that the mound of waste she chose is not coincidental. It actually becomes a colorful kaleidoscope of utopia.
Jaffa Meir is a multifaceted, autodidact artist working in painting, sculpture, photography, product design, carpets and furniture, painting on textile, and computer graphics.
The structural composition of some of the works is influenced also by her many years of working in the architects’ office.
Meir also worked in the developing of ideas within the field of ecosystems and recycling for factories such as Coca Cola, and during this process came up with ideas for designing parks and public game spaces using industrial waste products.
Lois's last book: "The style of Loish. Finding an artistic voice." is just AMAZING! It's:
- inspiring,
- full of tips on how to start searching own style,
- full of Lois's thoughts and experiences on her way to finding the artistic voice.
So I wanted to try something new in my digital art journey. I experimented with new techniques. I tried to use a brush type that gives a transparency effect.
I chose one picture from Loish's book as a reference.
And here it is - a colorful landscape.
Thank you, Lois, for creating and sharing your phenomenal and inspiring art!
Lightness 4: when a levity hurls us away.
This serie started with the purpose of paining people literary threw away from small ordinary objects like flowers of balloons. I wanted to depict the strength and the power that trifles have on us. Eventually ithey paintings became more and more “stable”, with just a touch of surrealism in them.
I kindly thank Ale for posing for me with patient. Thanks to her hair style, I am pretty sure you can recognize her in my last paintings ;)
Don Cutter (Full name Cookie Cutter) relishes in making their last name self evident. [This was done as a trade for a friend!!!! At present, she has no socials for me to link to, but I will update this if that ever changes!!!! (P.S. the name is *unofficial* but I am campaigning hard for her to canonize it!!!!)] P.P.S. this is the first image I am uploading of my (admittedly rather limited) backlog/body of work, so expect more updates in the near future [followed by a WHOLE lot of nothing for a while (I work SLOW ;-;)]!!!!
. . . Whimsy and nostalgia all entwined in an inky world of discovery . . . This piece was the last piece of artwork my Grandmother got to see of mine before she passed into the Lord's presence this past summer
I saw someone else on Doodle Addicts doing really great bookmarks and I remembered that last winter, when I couldn't seem to do anything else creative, I made a bunch of bookmarks. It's a way of trying out things, and using fun media like these glitter pens I inherited.
Sometimes, a good goodbye is also a fresh hello.
As we wrapped up our "Sacred Spaces" paintings, I asked our student teacher to design a one-day project—something playful, earthy, and engaging to ease the class into her care. She brought mud. Literally.
Using mud and simple stencils, students pressed images—flowers, insects, wings—onto the sidewalk behind our school. There's something timeless about making marks with the ground itself. It felt ancient and immediate at the same time.
These prints won’t last long, but maybe that’s the point. A fleeting image, a shared laugh, a new hand guiding the next phase of learning.
Art is about making marks. Not all of them need to be permanent.
