Raku Horses -Horse and Amazone I

Raku - Crackled white

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 60

It is amazing what a glaze can do!

Raku - simple cracked white

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 59

following the day 58 and finishing some of the shapes ( you need to read the day 58 to understand how those shapes have been created and read the story)

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 58

Over the last few days, I have been doing a very different exercise. I wanted to sculpt without an agenda, without any restriction of sculpting a specific subject, let my mind go the way it wants. Sculpting a specific subject, even trying to move away from the reality has its restrictions. Sculpting something that is not suppose to represent anything specific could be fun and liberating....

The best medium that I find for this type of exercise is clay as it quick to build and can be moved quickly as well.  It is quite amazing the shapes I came up with, something I wouldn't have imagine sculpting! I am trying to think about how I came up with those shape?  because I was sculpting with no pre-conceived idea or agenda those sculptures are not representational at all, yet there is a deep meaning behind those shapes.

I will be putting pictures  later on when those sculptures are in a finished stage.

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 57

 Last week I went to a wire sculpture course ( one of my Christmas presy! it was on my list at the top of the list:) ).  I really enjoyed working with this material and had a great day!

I will very very probably try to explore this material a bit more in the near future so keep looking!

The course was provided by Julieann Worral Hood , details on her website http://www.woho.co.uk/events/index.htm

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 56

Day 56, I have been working again on the next maquettes of horse and amazone.

The more that I am working on those maquettes of horse and amazone and the more i think stone would really suit those pieces. Stone would give them a stronger architectural presence. something to think about....

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 55

Day 55 was a very quiet one as I only decided to work on angel maquette number 2. I just like this simple shape that show the elegance of the horse.

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 54

I am still working on those new work and did another few maquettes and some 2D work as well.  I wont be posting pictures yet but you will be able to see the maquettes of my work during my open studios in may/June (TBD).

The interesting part during that process is when the initial subject becomes irrelevant and the material become the new subject.

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 53

Yesterday was a great day as I build a maquette of something very very new. I wont take pictures of that yet as I keep a bit of mystery around this piece of work:)

Another bit of thinking was around the little installation of those little 4-5 inches horses. I have been thinking and experimenting a bit with glazes and i think white glaze will be a bit too bland so I am changing this a bit. For the moment, I have not yet decided on the glaze. Also 100 of them will not work so I might be tempted to push the number to much higher... not sure yet. or may be a lot less.

the new challenge: 100 days in the unknown! Day 52

I am back after the Christmas Holidays and back on track on my journey. It was very good to have a break in a way as it gave me time to look again at my sketchbooks and also read few books, some of them are still not finished.

one of the book was " Henry Moore: on being a Sculptor" , very very good. This is the type of book you can probably read more than once.

This little break also allowed me to check on my progresses, for example with my little installation of 100  little ceramic horses. I thought that I was progressing quite well but noticed that only 20 were done...80 more to go!! I have been also experimenting with glazes and rethink this installation a little bit.

One think I am aslo going to start again is life drawing! I am going to concentrate a bit on my little bulldog as he is now fully grown and full of character! back to my charcoals and pens.

for day 52, I have been looking again at my horse and amazone, geometric/architectural work and produce another maquette

Latest maquette -Horse and amazone 3 - clay

Horse and amazone 2 - clay - bisc fired ready for glazing! or Raku? will see

Horse and amazone 1

Part of the same idea is the skyscrapers, still thinking about also doing more maquettes around this idea, using also different materials...