Slavery and despair

I'm not sure what is says about me that I found it much easier to come up with pictures for the words slavery and despair (Jan. 13&14) but am still flummoxed as to how to portray our most recent word: contentment.

Maybe it's the migraines, making it easier to think dark thoughts than happy ones?

For slavery, I immediately went to the idea of having no voice or power, being totally disenfranchised. I can't help but think about the stories of trafficked girls, and this is what came to mind:

I believe I will revisit this concept and take a bit more time with it. After I took the photos of this I realized the shape of the face is way too round, but by then I had dumped the powder back in the jar. Oops!

Despair -- this brought to mind the feeling of being crushed under the weight of depression or difficulties. Obviously I need to work on figure drawing, but I think this at least communicates what I was going for. I will revisit this drawing/concept again also for my series of hard life pictures. As soon as I have the time to really focus, and after I get the little wooden artist's human figure model in the mail. I think that will help me with getting the parts of the woman more proportionate.

Despair:

Thank you for dropping by!
...TRrrish ;o)

Infatuation and motivation

Been having a week of it -- fighting migraines :op

So, not much dialog, but here are my 10-minute powder sgraffito drawings for January 11 and 12: infatuation and motivation.

Infatuation: A bright flash of a firework, followed by ashes and smoke...

Motivation: Are you motivated by the carrot or the stick?

Greed, justice, and lack of attention

So last night I went to bed with the word of the day percolating through my thought process. How to depict "greed"? By the time I woke up, my mind had pictured greed as a large hungry mouth in a void. The mouth would have multiple rows of teeth (all the better to devour with) but being a disembodied mouth, everything the mouth consumes is lost to the void. Greed is never satisfied, always wanting MORE!

Too bad I mis-remembered the word for the day! The actual assignment is to draw envy, not greed. And it's really not the same concept at all, even though the two are somewhat related. Sorry folks, here is my D-/F submission for the 7th -- it doesn't follow the directions of the assignment at all. But here you have it --

Greed:

I realized upon reflection that the perspective of the tongue on this is completely wrong, so I re-did the tongue:

Then I realized that this is not really right either (and I prefer the softer look of the tongue above) but my 10 minutes was up, so I moved on to the next drawing...

The word for today is "justice". You know, as in "liberty and justice for all". And my favorite verse from the Old Testament (mangled Trish recollection of the translations I've read it in): "He has shown you what is good and what the Lord requires: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Goodness, I could write a whole book of blogs based on this one!
What comes to mind for me when I think about "doing justice" is this: making wrong things right. For everyone.

Justice:

I chose a single finger as the acting force in this because I liked the message it sends -- it doesn't always take a lot of effort to correct a wrong, and anyone can do it!. 

Thank you for stopping by!

Communication and waste

Can you guess our drawing challenge words of the day for yesterday and today? Hint; look up ;o)

Yes, "communication" was our word for the day yesterday, and "waste" was today's word. I always think the key to true communication is the ability to correctly receive and then respond to the message. I visualized this as a set of transmitters and receivers with the receivers much larger than the transmitters, symbolizing the importance of speaking gently but listening "hard". I think there may be shades of struggle from an old relationship directing this one  ;o)

Communication:

For "waste" I immediately started considering things that waste my time, sucking away opportunities to be creative. The top of that list: television. I find it such an easy escape, very much the opiate of the masses, circa 20th-21st centuries. I suppose social networking/getting stuck on Facebook is a close second.

Waste:

I actually only gave each of these 5 minutes, making them as a warm up for a couple of pieces I wanted to do some more work on.

I wanted to add a silhouette of a girl on a swing to the picture I started earlier with the old entwined trees. I like the play of youth (the young girl) against age (ancient trees) in the fading fall twilight. I will add more color to it in a subsequent firing, but here it is going in for a second firing today:

I have also had the picture of a Haitian woman in a desolate, dusty landscape (the reality for much of Haiti following massive deforestation and destructive typhoons) to add to. For now, I just added some shoes (the color I used earlier was too transparent) and a dust storm blowing up behind her. This may complete this piece (except for the framing of it), we'll see late tomorrow :o) BTW, the powder on the sandstorm fires much darker than it goes on. I used two colors that I mixed myself...

Thank you for dropping by!

... TRrrish

30 day challenge -- the abstract version! Days 1-4

January 2016 has brought with it snow, ice, migraines, and a new 30-day powder drawing challenge! Between traveling and recovering from all those "foreign" germs, I have been slow to start. But today I was determined to get caught up.

This year's challenge is actually quite different from last year's. We are only "allowed" 10-15 minutes for each powder drawing: they are intended to be a "warm up" of sorts to get our hands and heads loose and working. Yes, our heads! You see this year we will be given a new abstract noun each day and challenged to, well, draw what comes to mind. What comes to mind for me is that I am not sure I am much of an abstract thinker! 

Here are my quick powder drawings for January 1-4th. White sheet glass, black glass powder, using my fingers and a business card as my only "tools":

January 1st: "Comfort"

January 2nd: "Effulgence":

January 3rd: "Generosity":

January 4th:  "Chaos":

Work in progress

My kilns have been working overtime this month getting Christmas gifts made. And a couple of birthday presents as well as two wedding gifts. I'm looking forward to a slow down of "production mode" so I can experiment and play some more!
Last count I think I made 10 candle holders, 6 platters of various sizes, and a couple of bowls. Here are a few examples:

I have a few works in progress that I am so very looking forward to completing also. This first is based on a picture I saw of a Haitian woman in World Pulse Magazine a couple of years ago. I love the gauzy appearance of the dress, and don't want to lose that by over-firing, but do think I am going to play around with adding an additional element -- perhaps a basket or a small patch of weedy vegetation... I will also add some color to make her shoes stand out a slight bit more.

  One of my favorite color combinations. I used a black powder glass with mica in it for the design and it is really sparkly. It will make a lovely bowl!

For this piece I was playing around with colors that contain elements that react with each other. Where the copper-containing blue touches the sulfur-containing cream, a you get a change in color to a smoky gray/brown. I like it especially for this because I wanted it to have an "industrial chic" vibe. I don't think I will be adding additional colors or firing it again, just need to come up with an appropriate way to display it. I may mount it on oxidized copper or distressed wood.

Emo girl -- I've tried a couple of different borders but haven't come up with one I really like yet. I have a new one in mind, however. I think it will be just right!  ;o)

This was a fun exercise in playing with layers of both color and texture. I may make a couple more of these and fire them differently then mount them as a triptych..,

Signing off for now, thank you for visiting!

Playing with texture

I have been so busy working on new techniques that I have had much less time for powder glass drawing than I had hoped! Here are a few pieces I managed to create in breaks between the day to day production of Christmas gifts and ornaments:


This is my favorite of the bunch so far. About 8" square. I'm pretty happy with it, but still considering adding a tiny round circle where the red ball is, to make it stand out a bit more.

 

I still have work to do on this one (a lot of work). I'm planning on adding color, and a swing on the long branch. I like the idea of adding a couple of children, probably in silhouette, because I think they will be a wonderful juxtaposition and contrast to the mature entwined trees. Kind of a play on young love and old love ;o)

And one of my dandelions -- I'm already thinking about how I am going to do the next one!

I've also been really enjoying playing with texture -- here are a couple of pieces I completed this month: 

 This is a bas relief piece that just glows, I used iridescent glass for some extra pizzazz, and it really helps the texture "pop".

For this I played with glass enamels and created a bubbly texture on the surface of the glass. I love the texture and the cool bumpy surface!

Clearly, I need to find someone local who is better than I am at photographing my glass! Here is a close up of the color and texture of the bubble texture piece:

Oh, did I mention Christmas presents? This 8 x 12" platter and 6" square candle dish are just out of the kiln this morning!

And my smaller kiln -- gave these up today!

Finally, and just for fun -- here's my first lidded box. The first picture is of the lid. I held it up to the light so you can see how fabulous it looks with that light shining through it. People have asked if this is granite, you will see why in the next picture, but it's all glass! The lid like this reminds me very much of a koi pond  ;o)

And here is the whole box, with the lid on. I think these will make spectacular "gift boxes" for tiny little special gifts like rings and other jewelry!

I am having so much fun creating -- and the kiln is once again FULL of platters and dishes that will be making their way under the tree very soon!