A Plate a Day

August 27, 2015August 26, 2015 ~ Sebastian ~ Leave a comment

I found this wonderful blog – A Plate a Day.

Just a massive amount of variety to the simple plate. The plate is something we use daily and most of us don’t ever give it a second thought. As humans we need, in order of importance –

1) Air
2) Water
3) Food

The vessels that we use to drink with and to eat with are very meaningful when you think about it. It’s just part of the routine, the ritual of staying alive and thriving. They are so ubiquitous that they are virtually ignored beyond the initial reactions of “Oh these plates are cool lets get this set!” or the oh so often “I am really tired of washing dishes!”.

Give your dishes a second look next time you sit down for a nice meal. Do they just do their job or do they give you something beyond that? A connection with the maker perhaps? A symbiosis with your food or drink? A reminder of someone or some time in your life? Food for thought I guess. Have a great day!

A Plate a Day

Good Times at the Wheel

May 25, 2015May 25, 2015 ~ Sebastian ~ Leave a comment

Clay is a beautiful beautiful thing. We collaborate with nature and refine it and shape it and then offer it to the flame. If you are lucky, it will give you something back that will last a lifetime.

I’ve been turning out some decent work after a hard few weeks. Its good to get going and I’m maintaining some momentum. I had a success with my Terra Sigillata experiment and I’m really liking some of these new shapes I’m designing.

I also made some small hand jewelry plates, which if the clay cooperates with the heat of the kiln it wont bubble or blister. I’m planning to bisque a looooong cone 04 to burn out as much junk as I can and glaze fire to cone 5. I think I’ll do it in two batches as I don’t want to risk them all in the same load.

Motif

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 ~ Sebastian ~ Leave a comment

From Wikipedia – In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: “The motive is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity”.

In my last firing I started thinking about decoration of my vessels. After a decade in photography I realized that I had an enormous amount of knowledge and was able to solve just about anything that came along. I had my own language.

So now I have a template to go by for learning and mastering what I want to create in ceramics. The template is repetition, the ability to solve problems and exercising your imagination. Once you get it rolling you are able to create a motif of your own with infinite variations.

Small guinomi / shot glass from the recent firing. Nuka over Temmoku on white clay body in cone 10 reduction.

“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”
– Zig Ziglar

You start with the basics: Color & Texture.

Single Solid Color
Blending of two or more solid colors
Floating colors
Creating Breaks
Where do you create the delineations of colors / textures / shapes
Color Combinations – What looks good together
The breaks can be on any part of the vessel, what parts look good?
Patterns, both in color and or texture
Other things I cant think of at the moment

The sketchbook is out and I’ll try on paper each variation and combination and see what suits me. The happy accidents are the deviations that can lead you down a new path.