Category Archives: Original Designs

These are pieces of art that are entirely from my own creativity.

Now Level 3 Certified Powertex Trainer…

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I spent a day with the fabulous Brit once again, learning how to paint with Powertex. Here are the results of a few hours work. Workshops are destined to follow fairly soon as these techniques are fast and great effects easily achieved:

Powertex frame example

Both techniques concentrate on building layers and texture, with pigment powder highlights. The figures and stones are made from Stone Art/Powertex clay. With practice I think my figures will be a little more uniform – I was going for the slightly more abstract elongated appearance, honest! Sizes – ‘African scene’ – 40x50cm, ‘Stones’ – 40x40cm.

 

College Course – Term 6 – Final Exhibition

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Where has two years gone? Seems to have flown by! And so, I come to the close of my course, and here are the pictures of my final exhibition. I have studio pictures of the final pieces to post as well, and they’ll come in due course. I’ve used a bit of Photoshop jiggery-pokery to get some of the detail right in the exposures, but the light level on the day was more the dome pic than the globe pic (i.e. not as dark as I’d like, but hey ho!).

Wanton self promotion!
Porcelain pieces
Paper/card pieces
Keep an eye out for the individual pieces as they will be for sale, complete with free light! I don’t have enough room to store them or display them, so it’s only right they should find a new loving home 🙂

Death knell for a mural

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Apparently it’s got to that time when you realise that you need to start working round the house redecorating. To be honest, cracks and imminent ceiling failure perhaps have spurred this realisation on a little faster… which means that for the bathroom, at least, it’s time for a makeover. Unfortunately, that means it’s time over for the mural that has been there for almost ten years.

The mural isn’t the first I’ve painted – that was back when I was 14 or 15. But this one was by far the most planned and artistic, using emulsion paint and a glaze to thin it. The colours were dictated by the tiles chosen and I used natural sponge to imitate the pattern in paint. The rest was stippled or rolled on, with the aim of it all to be a ruined Greco-Roman temple. Another piece of ancient history disappearing… roll on the future!

Main wall, moonlit seascape and balcony
Faux vaulted ceiling over bath
Glass and pillar detail, over sink

 

 

College – Term 5 – Final Ceramics Piece

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This piece from last term won’t be exhibited at my end of course show next week, so now it’s been fired and assembled, I thought I’d share it with you here 🙂

The brief was to create a ‘Cornell style box’ (i.e. an assemblage) based on my chosen collection, which, for last term, was beads. The base and top were scaled up from a metal filigree bead, with the top flowers being formed from a mould made using lucite beads. The hanging flowers were sliced from a clay extrusion using my own custom laser-cut perspex die and then individually hand carved and pierced. The clay used was earthstone which goes cream/white when fired, and I decided to keep it unglazed.

The filigree section was formed by sticking down D-shaped extrusions to form the pattern, using slip, and then I used a fine potter’s knife to cut out the enclosed sections. This obviously took the most time! Just as the box was finished, I managed to drop it – a gut-wrenching moment, but happily not much got damaged and the clay was still soft enough to work out the kinks. After that, I was a lot more careful!

Handmade tag book

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Over the last couple of days I have been putting together this handmade book as a potential project for a gathering of some of the UK course graduates of the Creative Chemistry 101 online course with Tim Holtz. The cover is made from 100gsm paper dragged through Distress Paints, which has the bonus of being waterproof once dry. The lining was done the same way. The pages are folded from A5 printed sheets of paper and stuck down the opening edge with 3mm wide double sided tape to form the tag pockets. They are handsewn for binding before gluing the spine and sticking into the cover.The completed book contains 25 different #5 tags with the instructions, and I probably need to explore a concertina binding on the spine to account for this…

[Book dimensions: 31/4″x51/4″ (8cm x 13cm)]

Stone carving… with a scalpel?

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As previously mentioned, I’ve just completed my level two training in the use of Powertex and their Stone Art product. I was considering what I’d learnt, and decided to attempt another piece to test a concept I’d had an idea for…

Carved stone studio sign in situ

And I think the concept works really well – I just need to tweak the colouring a little, but the carved lettering was really quick once the outlines were traced on to the ‘stone’ and with a sharp scalpel, there was minimum effort and mess. The pencil and brushes were added as an afterthought and were just as easy to ‘carve’ into the stone. I’d love your commissions for carved signs and just about any shape and size is possible! And postage shouldn’t be prohibitive… the sign is stuck on with double sided tape!

 

Powertex Certification continues…

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I spent yesterday getting more training in the use of the versatile fluid hardener, Powertex. This time we concentrated on ‘Stone Art’. Given that there isn’t a single grain of anything even vaguely resembling stone in the project below, it’s a very impressive product!

Powertex Stone Art - first projectThe base is the heaviest part of the project, and also likely to be the only part that isn’t weatherproof. I took the opportunity to get a stack of materials into stock (and find somewhere in the studio to store them!) so I’ll be playing some more as I get some samples ready for workshops later in the year. Thanks to Brit for another cracking training session.

 

 

Seasonal Colour Palette – Dove of Peace

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I like a challenge… and I like it even more when I get inspiration, have the materials, and more importantly can snatch a moment to get the piece done. So it is with some delight that I share with you my entry to the Ranger Ink ‘Seasonal Color Palette’ Challenge: to create any project using the theme colours based around the Adirondack Color Washes in Butterscotch, Meadow, Espresso and Sailboat Blue. It’s a 12×12 inch canvas:

Color Wash Dove

From concept to final outcome took approximately 3 hours, with only two hours of hands-on crafting. I started by using Adobe Illustrator to produce an outline of the starburst, dove and olive branch, printing it out four times. Each copy was then sprayed with fixative spray to seal it, which stopped the colour wash bleeding through. I cut out the various items to produce stencils – the central outline, the eyes and beak, the branch, and then the starburst ‘prongs’. I used repositionable spray glue to coat the back and adhere the stencil firmly to the canvas before spraying each of the colours on in turn, using a heat tool to dry and heat set between colours. Aside from a bit of overspray and bleed, and a little stencil misalignment, I’m quite pleased with the result. I did a little touching up here and there with some of the Distress Paints, which may be hard to see as they picked up some of the dye layers beneath.

College – Term 6 – Final Major Project – another light shade

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It’s another light shade, this time featuring cut-outs using silhouettes based on my own observational drawings. I’ve cut the silhouettes from heavy interfacing, used Bondaweb to fuse to a layer of white cotton, and then machine stitched them onto the card frame.

 

And this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in a darkened room. The stress hadn’t got to me (though the same can’t be said for our tutor this morning!), but the need to photograph all my creations to date had. Here’s a selection:

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