Going out in a glaze of glory.

This week I have been preparing glazes to finish off some previous sculptures. Earlier in the year I made some Gorilla sculptures and busts of popular film characters which due to time constraints I was unable to get finished. Here are the pictures of said models.

This piece is called 'Hold on to wisdom' ad represents the importance of learning from your mistakes.

Hollow inside was a Gorilla showing he was empty on the inside, this was a reflection of how low and depressed people can feel when heartbroken.

 

The Grinch, this bust is pretty self explanatory, but was constructed in an attempt to challenge myself having never made a bust before.

Having succeeded in my first bust I followed up with a powerful Hulk bust, I live the idea of good vs evil and the ideas of super heros and villains. This is the reason for super heros regularly featuring in my sketch books and works.

 

 

 

These are the glazed pieces waiting to be fired...

 

 

The for all the colour glazes I used a base glaze and then added different under glazes glazes to the mix. The matt black glaze was a completely separate concoction. Here are the recipes...

 

Base Glaze:

Lead bisilicate          40

whiting                     15

high alkaline frit       10

china clay                   5

flint                            15

 

To achieve the colours I added these ingredients to the base glaze:

 

Green:

Titanium dioxide      5

green under glaze     7

 

White:

Titanium dioxide      10

 

Red:

Titanium dioxide      5

red under glaze       10



 

 

Matt black:

 

red clay                   30

potash feldspar       15

manganese oxide    50

copper oxide             2

lead bisilicate            3

 

All glazes are to be fired to 1100 degrees.

 

Here are the results of the glaze firing:

Unfortunately this piece has cracked in the kiln, its a real shame as its one of my favourites

This Gorilla has come out looking great I'm really pleased with the white and black contrast with the glazes for the body and the eyes.

 

I'm extremely happy with how Mr Grinch has turned out, the green glaze has been much darker than I expected but it has resulted in making him look far malevolent. This is great as I pride my work on being a lot darker than the norm.

Again the green glaze has proved darker than expected but has left the clay with a brilliant finish that almost looks like a metal surface.

All in all I am pleased with the result of the firing with one mishap of the cracked gorilla all has gone according to plan.

 

As an alternative to glaze many artists who make similar kinds of sculptures for example Ant Watkins, Boularis or Chris Calver rope in professional painters to complete their work. This in mind I attempted to paint one of my pieces using acrylic paints.

 

 After painting...

 

The bold colours of the paint look great but this was just a simple paint job, hiring a pro would defininlty enhance my more complex models.