Almost midterm...

It's almost midterm time here at the Kansas City Art Institute -- our first midterm as Juniors!! I've been working pretty hard and long hours on putting together a place setting. We've had so many weeks of throwing bowls and plates, reviewing, refining, reproducing and we are still only at midterms. But how much fun it is to just play around with different forms and designs and let your ideas guide you through the process.

I started out throwing a bunch of little bowls and trimming the bottoms round; I then started to manipulate the rims, cutting something off here, re-attaching it there, shaping the bowls into ovals.

I added slabs and put an upholstery pattern on it, attached a foot off-center, took that off again, added a rim, added more detail, and finally came up with something that resembles a pillow. I stuck with this idea and am now in the process of developing this "pillow"-idea further and integrating it into a place set.

For my midterm critique I am going to have two sets; both are not fully developed yet, but the direction I am taking with this is pretty clear. On my source imagery blog I have several references to upholstery, and fabrics, as well as frames, borders, and rims. I'm still working on surface decoration for the lower plate, not sure yet if it will be therma-faxing, rice paper decals or iron-oxide decals yet. Maybe I can figure out a nice layering effect with a few of these techniques.

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I'm still struggling with how these sets will be glazed, but the testing will begin after midterms. I'm thinking bare, beautiful white porcelain, black underglaze, and gold luster... Wish me luck :)