Ceramics

I can't believe this was my work!!!!! okay so this was a ceramic work I did last year during the ceramics module, and I remember how excited I was to be in this module with mrs tan :) Since coming into aep, I've always wanted to work with the potter's wheel or something, and this was one of the closest encounters I've had with clay! 

The requirement of this assignment was that it had to have something to do with NATURE. So I decided to incorporate both the human aspect and plant aspect into one! I'll edit this post again when I've gotten pics of my prep...

It's been more than a year since I did this work and it's still sitting on the shelf in the kiln room.

Creating this piece of work was really really really fun. While the other modules were doing digital things or fashion drawings with marker and pen, we were having an awesome time doing hands-on!!!! K let me talk more about the process... so I started with the base, which is the hand.  but if you can make it out, it's also supposed to be the roots of the tree at the same time. The fingers were moulded painstakingly, but if you refer to the first photo, the index finger cracked off after going into the kiln :( 

Anyway I used the garlic presser to squeeze out the 'veins' on the hand and once again it's supposed to be both veins of the human and vascular bundles/roots of the tree. The fingernails are a gross shade of brown, just to make the whole work more earthly-toned.

Then it came to the tree trunk/ arm. This part was so fun to do!!! basically I used coils and coils of clay, piled one of top of the other, and in the end applied loads of slip in a haphazard manner to create the rough, spiky texture. It's supposed to look like a tree trunk. does it???? 

The painting part was also fun fun fun. I added lots of water to 3 shades of brown and just allowed them to trickle down. that's how I got this effect. I'm honestly very happy with how the bulk of it turned out (as in the colours and texture and shape). 

Then it came to the not-so successful part...

The leaf didn't turn out as 'leafy' as I had wanted it to, with regards to the texture. What I did was take a slab of clay and when it was dry enough, and shaped it in such a way that the clay started to crack and give a very natural, leafy feel. It did crack a little as you can see from above, but I guess cos clay itself is a very dense material, it didn't turn out as how I envisioned it to be. I think if I hadn't painted it green, it wouldn't even look half like a leaf! and if you're wondering why the outer coat of the leaf is red, it's to symbolise the human colour- the colour of blood.

The message behind my work, if put into a sentence, would be:

WE ARE A PART OF NATURE, NOT APART FROM NATURE

Sounds familiar? 

Hint: HSP