Masterpiece - Nymphéas

Claude Monet was a French impressionistic artist who is mostly famous for his "Water Lilies" series. In the last 30 years of Monet's life, he mainly focused on painting water landscapes which mostly consisted of water lilies. Monet actually created around 250 water lily oil paintings. These pieces we all inspired by his property, were he planted and gardened water lilies and created a peaceful sanctuary.

Balance is a really good principle that is in Monet's water lily paintings, he made sure to spread out the plants evenly, without making them seem to symmetrical and unnatural. Rhythm is a clear principle throughout his pieces, with the repetition of the water lilies that are present in each painting of the series. Unity could also be a principle because it creates a sense of harmony and wholeness that wouldn't be there if the water lilies were missing in the paintings.

In my interpretation of Monet's Water Lilies, I did not take inspiration from just one of his paintings, I look at a few of them and tried to combine them into something in between. I took main elements that flowed through each of the pieces, such as the water lilies and the mostly blue toned water surrounding them,

Something I would try to improve on would be to add more colors into the piece. Monet's paintings were all very colorful and have tons of color mixing and I stayed more with the same few glazes and just created more of a basic blue water scene when I wish I added more color and made it just all more interesting.

Texture Project/Donation

This is my textural project which I also ended up donating for the fundraiser. I first rolled out a slab of clay and the pressed in the textural design into the slab. I then used a mold I found to create the general shape of the plate with the textured slab. For glazing I did a purple underglaze and then tried to use an opalescent glaze over it but I didn't do it right I guess.

Rhythm would be principle because of the repeated design on the plate itself. Balance could be another principle because if you were to cut the piece in half, the sides would be the same, I made sure that that the rim of the plate was even all around. Proportion could also be principle because the plate is all even and uneven.

When I saw the patten of the stamp, it reminded me of scales, which is where I got the idea to try and glaze it to be oceanic colors with blues, greens, and purples. Then I decided to try out the opalescent glaze on top of the oceanic colors but I think I added too much because the whole thing just turned out the color of the opalescent.

I am not too proud of this piece. I think the glazing is what really ruined the piece for me. I also added too many layers of glaze that it took away some of the texture I pressed into the clay, making it not very textured which was the whole point of this piece.

Culture Project

This is my culture piece. I used a mold in the form of a face to create the initial shape of this piece. After I got to pop the clay out of the mold, I went back and touched up parts of the piece that weren't looking too hot. For glazing I decided to keep it pretty simple and just do a nice line pattern in different simple colors.

Balance is a principle because I made the design on the face even on each sides with the yellow stripes on either side of the red stripe. Also proportion because the human face is generally mostly proportionate and I made sure that this mask was. There is unity in this piece because of the glazing, all the colors flow nicely together.

This piece was inspired by African masks. I wanted to try and depict the culture in a more simplified way. I used referenced of masks to create the design of the glazing. They generally used stripes, dots, and swirls on their masks and I really liked the stripes.

I am ok with this piece. I like how the glazing turned out and parts of the clay chipped off but I think it just makes the piece look antique. I would work on my construction for this piece, I think it could be a lot more nicer and sturdier.