 Recently I have been working on organising our next workshop: "Paint Your Own Handmade Porcelain Christmas Decoration". As Christmas will soon be here we thought it was high time get in the spirit of things. The cool thing about these decorations is that it can hang on the christmas tree or even be placed onto gift packaging when packaging your Christmas gifts! Myself and Wen-Hsi really enjoyed putting on the previous workshop "Paint your own handmade wheel thrown pottery mug" for you and it was great to see your creations. I was getting into the Christmas mood painting these and they were really fun to make! so I thought I would show you the process! Who knows, if you would like to come along to the "Paint Your Own Handmade Porcelain Christmas Decoration" workshop this blog post might be helpful to you to get you thinking about ways in which you can paint your own decoration. If you an artist/maker or someone just curious dropping by on this page I hope this information can be helpful as well. Lets dive in! Make the Decoration! If you would like to make the decoration from start to finish you will need some clay! For these decorations I used porcelain. Its a ceramic material known bright white colour, strength and its ability to be fired to high temperatures. First I rolled out the porcelain into flat sheet, then I used stencil cutters to cut out the shapes. (If you click on the Are You Ready image you can see some of the process) its fascinating to watch! Once we have the shapes we need to put small holes into them so that we can add the ribbon or string for the decoration to hang on the Christmas tree!. I used a ceramic hole cutter for this. Once the shapes are finished we let them dry out.
Paint the Decoration After we have Bisque fired the decoration in the kiln to 1000c we can then begin painting! In the "Paint Your Own Handmade Porcelain Christmas Decoration" workshop we are painting the Reindeer, Gingerbread man, Dog Bone for you guys that love dogs, Star and a special surprise decoration which you will only find out at the workshop! We can use pencil to sketch out the image we want to create first. For these ones I was thinking about creating something quite animated and lively, I was thinking about my art when creating them. Maybe you can think about what images interest you. Do you have a favourite animal? Maybe you can paint Santa or the elves! (If you need some inspiration we will be taking inspiration imagery with us to the workshop.) Then we can use ceramic underglaze paints to paint the image using a variety of thick and thin brushes. Yes we do love a good statement! and the Porcelain Christmas Decorations will do just that, at least the newspaper thinks so!  Wow! Now we applied the Glaze! It really has transformed! After we have finished hand painting the Christmas decorations we let the paint dry out and then apply clear glaze. When that is done we can place them in the kiln again to glaze fire them to a high temperature of 1230c! But wait we need to put the ribbon on! Yep, we sue do. For this workshop I have used red ribbon to tie through the hole so that it can hang on the tree. You can also tie it on to gift packaging as well. It does not have to be red ribbon, you can also use different colours as well. Here I feel the red really works well in creating a contrast with the porcelain. After all that work we can now see the finished results! In the "Paint Your Own Handmade Porcelain Christmas Decoration" workshop we also gift wrap after you have painted them and once they have been fired for you to collect. It looks great in the gift packaging! Great for gifts!  If you found this Inspirational I would defiantly recommend attending our Workshop to try this yourself and take home your unique Porcelain Christmas Decoration Creation! If you are looking for a new activity for your family or friends why not come along to this workshop. What makes this workshop special is that you get to create your own unique painting on a selection of porcelain Christmas Decorations completely handmade by the artist Martin that’s yours to keep and treasure! I hope you found this information useful.
Welcome to visit this blog again. I will be keeping this Blog up to date with new (Information About My Art and Artist Resources). If you like what I am releasing into the world, feel free to follow the journey on Instagram or Subscribe to my Newsletter for the latest updates and new artworks.
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 Recently I have been working on organising a "Paint your own handmade Wheel Thrown Mug" workshop. It was an exciting process painting a mug so I thought I would show you the process! Who knows, if you would like to come along to the workshop this blog post might be helpful to you to get you thinking about ways in which you can paint your own mug. However if you an artist/maker or someone just curious dropping by on this page I hope this information can be helpful. Prepare your Mug! I created this mug on the potters wheel. The mug itself is made from Stoneware clay which fires to a creamy white colour. The mug is Bisque fired first to 1000c to prepare it for painting! Use a Pencil to sketch out your design Firstly before painting, I did a bit of research for inspirational imagery. I was thinking well its coming up to September. Being this time of year in the UK I was thinking about the kind of nature we see. So researched on Google images such blackberry’s, butterfly and a mushroom. From this imagery I then got to work drawing the main outlines of the form onto the Bisque ware mug. I used a basic pencil to do this. The good thing is that the pencil marks will not show up in the glaze firing. Another good thing about using a pencil is that if you make a mistake you can use a rubber to erase this. Once we have the main outline of the form we can start applying the colour!  Start Painting Find some paint brushes you can use. For this mug I used a fine small pointy brush to paint some of the lines as well as a slightly bigger one to fill in more of the colour. Then we want to get the ceramic paints to apply the colour. The colours I have used is ceramic underglaze paints. We got colurs like red, orange, blues, yellow, greens, brown and black. To start painting all I do is dip the a brush into clean water to then mix into the dry underglaze colour. From here I can start applying the colour on the brush to the bisque ware! For example with this butterfly I applied the lighter blues first before adding the darker blues. This is one way of building up depth of colour.  Wow! Now we applied the Glaze! What a transformation! Now that we have finished painting the mug we can then apply a clear transparent stoneware glaze. If you are into glazing I dipped the mug once into the glaze and fired the mug to 1230c. After all that work we can now see the finished results!  If you found this Inspirational I would defiantly recommend attending our Workshop to try this yourself and take home your unique Mug creation! Martin will be teaming up with artist Wen-Hsi Harman to run a "Paint You Own Handmade Wheel Thrown Pottery Mug" Workshop. Come and paint your very own Handmade Mug. What makes this workshop special is that you get to create your own unique painting on a mug completely handmade, thrown on the potters wheel by the artist Martin that’s yours to keep and treasure! What will happen in the Workshop?
Who is the Workshop for?
What time is the Workshop? How long is it? When does it Start?
Where is the Workshop?
If you would like to book a ticket to attend you can find it here: Where can I buy the Tools & Equipment? If you would like to try this for yourself, for a beginner starting out you can look into these tools and materials. I had a look through Amazon to find something that should be helpful for you. Please note if you make a purchase through any of these links I will receive a small commission. Your purchase helps a lot as it helps to support me creating content for you. Underglaze ceramic Paints I could not find the ones I use as I purchased these in Taiwan. This is the closest I could find and a lady who reviewed it said you can add water to the paint. Amagogo Ceramic Pigments, Underglaze Color Pigment, Art Paint Set, Pottery Glaze Painting Art Crafts, for Adults and Kids, Craft painting on Ceramic,Wood, Rocks, Style A Find it here: amzn.to/3YXaUfd Pencils STAEDTLER 61 120 C6 Noris Graphite Pencils - Sketch Set (Pack of 6 Pencils in Assorted Grades, Eraser & FREE Sharpener) Find it here: amzn.to/3ALmyPX Brushes ILantule Paint Brushes Set,10 PCS Professional Painting Brushes, Artists Paint Brushes, Brushes for Acrylic Painting, for Artists, Adults & Kids Find it here: amzn.to/3XrGxfP I hope you found this information useful.
Welcome to visit this blog again. I will be keeping this Blog up to date with new (Information About My Art and Artist Resources). If you like what I am releasing into the world, feel free to follow the journey on Instagram or Subscribe to my Newsletter for the latest updates and new artworks.  If you have been navigating the contemporary art world you might have come across the style of art known as Abstract Art. But "What is Abstract Art" and were did it come from? What is the Style of Abstract Art? Abstract art generally uses shapes, colours, forms, and lines to convey meaning without portraying reality. It is usually based on art that withdraws itself from our known external reality. Artists can sometimes draw inspiration from subjects in our external reality but brake them down to focus on these elements that become removed from being completely representational. Abstract art can embody: order, purity, simplicity and spirituality. Its also interesting to note that Abstract Art brought on other art movements that embody Abstract Art like De Stijl, Abstract Expressionism, Suprematism and Cubism. What Materials are used to create Abstract Art? The materials used to create Abstract Art ranged from painting, sculpture and even buildings! The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, Netherlands was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld who was inspired by ideas from De Stijl. The artists involved were abstract artists. Were did Abstract Art Come from? It originated in Europe from the 19th century as part of the Modern Art Movement. It was a shift away from traditional art and philosophies. Who were some of the pioners of Abstract Art? Hilma af Klint A Swedish artist known for her mystical paintings. Considered to be the first abstract artist known in Weston art history. Piet Mondrian A Dutch painter known for his paintings depicting basic shapes and primary colours. He was also involved in the movement De Stijl. Theo van Doesburg A Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He was the founder of the art movement De Stijl. Jackson Pollock Pollock shook the art world with his large canvases covered in expressive marks the viewer could get lost in. Naum Gabo An influential sculptor from Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde exploring geometric abstraction. How do I see Abstract Art? Some of my inspiration comes from Abstract Art. In some ways my art is non-representational as it uses shapes and colours to convey an idea. However sometimes the representational works its way in. In essence I see abstract art as being immersed in an experience that invites curiosity. Like listening to music we are left to decode the art form for ourselves and that is the beauty of it. You are welcome to watch this Video I created bellow: What is Abstract Art? In this video I attempt to answer that question from my own perspective to try and shed some light on the subject. Hopefully it can give you more info. I hope you found this information useful.
Welcome to visit this blog again. I will be keeping this Blog up to date with new (Information About My Art and Artist Resources). If you like what I am releasing into the world, feel free to follow the journey on Instagram or Subscribe to my Newsletter for the latest updates and new artworks.  There are a number of reasons why you might or might not want to apply for an Open Art Exhibition. In this blog post I am going to try and brake down the Pros and Cons based on my experience. I hope it can help you in some way. The Pro's? People interested in your Art Will see your work. What I can say is that this is helped my artworks to become more recognisable. I noticed when taking my work to exhibitions people will say "I remember your work, I saw it at...." You might sell an artwork at the exhibition or after I remember applying for a open Art call at Salisbury Art Centre in 2022. I submitted 2 ceramic wall sculptures, but only one was selected. I dropped off my wall sculpture at the venue, went to the preview. It was an energetic show with lots of artworks to see. During the show uncertainty and doubt crept in as I did not here any news and thought to myself no one was interested. Then it got to the end of the exhibition. I thought to myself here we go again. However a week or two after the show someone contacted me through my website and said they had saw this ceramic wall sculpture on display and wanted to purchase a similar piece on my website! From this I learned that you never know who might be looking at your artwork. You can network with people at the preview
Your can evidence the exhibition
You Might Win a Prize!
 The Con's Some Open Art Exhibitions Cost Money to Enter Applications can come with a fee. As an artist based in the UK on average I spend about £5-22 per application and that is usually just to submit one sculpture or painting. Shipping/ Travel/ Packing Costs
Its like playing the Lottery Open Art exhibitions can receive hundreds if not thousands of applications from artist submissions. This is especially true if the Art Exhibition is a global call out! For example the organisers might only select 100 artists out of 1000 artist applications. That is only 10% of all submissions and imagine if there is more submissions! the odds of being selected can really stack up! Should You Apply for an Open Art Exhibition? I think its a good idea to think what works for you. There are artists out there who don't apply for open art competitions. Thats great, you can get your work seen in other ways. You could hire out public space to show your art, place your work in other spaces like coffee shops, libraries, restaurants or other places you think might get your work seen by the rite people. There are artists like myself who do apply. I remember when I first stated my art journey I was applying for so many, lets just say it was getting expensive! What I learned was to be more selective about the Open Art Exhibition I was applying for. I started looking at who the judges were and looking at what what style of work they like. That way if I applied I could submit work in line with their potential taste. Now I am more selective about the Open Art Exhibitions I do apply for. I don't apply to as many as I used to as now I enjoy being more creative in how I get my work seen by creating my own opportunities. However if I find an Open Art Exhibition that interests me I will apply. For me the biggest takeaway from showcasing my work in Open Art Exhibitions has been the opportunity to have my work seen in real life and become more recognised and meet people. At the end I think us artists are carving out our own paths and seeing what works for us. If you don't try, you don't know. Were Can I Find Open Art Exhibition Opportunities? If you are an artist based in the UK here are some links to useful resources to find opportunities. Watch the Video "How to Prepare for an Open Call Art Exhibition" If you found this Blog post helpful you are welcome to watch this Video I created bellow: "How to Prepare for an Open Call Art Exhibition" Its a video I made a wile back were I talk about: Should You Apply? Where to Find the Opportunity? Which one Should I Apply For? Who Can Apply? Application & Fees? What if I am Selected? Hopefully it can give you more info. I hope you found this information useful.
Welcome to visit this blog again. I will be keeping this Blog up to date with new (Information About My Art and Artist Resources). If you like what I am releasing into the world, feel free to follow the journey on Instagram.  I have been making and creating things with my hands I would say since school. I remember I was lucky to have access to ceramics and art classes. At the time I just enjoyed experimenting and leaning about the wider field of ceramics and art. It was the only thing I gravitated to so I just stuck to it. Plus I remember my teacher saying I was good at ceramics. From this I then went onto taking up ceramic design at University to experiment more in clay. This then led me to study a Masters Degree at Cardiff School of Art and Design, UK to experiment further with ceramics and generate new ideas. Deciding? At the beginning of my MA course we were assigned with choosing an object or image to start our thought process into possible concepts that could be explored in our ceramic practice. Initially I had looked at a range of subjects mainly of ancient artefacts such as stone carvings and functional objects etc. What I was drawn to was their histories, it made me question is function, purpose and who made them. However what really interested me was the the way I approached these subjects. I did not read too much into the descriptions about them, I used my eyes to see the image first, to experience it in my own way. There is no sign to tell me exactly what it is? I realised that with out any explanation about an object we are left to decipher its meaning using our imagination. It was this mode of thinking that led me to the monument Stonehenge located in Salisbury, England. It fitted this way of thinking as there is no sign to tell people exactly what it is. Sure we can get a sense that it is an architectural space of some sort. It is thought to be a religious site or temple and was constructed to align with the movements of the sun, honour ancestors and mark important moments in the calendar. However as far as I am aware there is no concrete evidence of what this monument was used for. Humans are left to guess and imagine for ourselves its mystery? It is this constant intervention of human activity upon this architectural space that interests me. People are constantly implementing new meaning or ideas to try to unravel its mystery. In a sense the monument is constantly in a state of change, new stories are created, and our experience of the place will always be different. A place of pilgrimage? This ancient monument draws people from all over the world including myself to travel to see this ancient site. I noticed people taking photographs either of the monument or of themselves with it and people engaging in conversation with each other such as recalling what information they know about it or speculating its meaning, then there were some people who just walked around and around as if just deep in thought. What strikes my mind is that this place seems to be a place of pilgrimage. We seem to be drawn to it. Do we want to know more about it? Do we come here to marvel at it? Do we want to understand the past? Is it a place were people can record their lives or revisit a memory?  Questions, but no Answers? Its this this process of questioning that evokes my interest in this monument. It leads me to think about: What it is Who made it Space Time Imagination Contemplation Our place in the universe Society Belief The Human experience It is these topics and ideas that shift its way into the creation of my artworks. If you would like to visit Stonehenge and see the mystery for yourself, you are welcome to check out the map bellow. Perhaps in this day and age we want to know the answers to anything and everything. But if we knew the answer to everything would life be interesting? If you would like to know more about my Art Journey you are welcome to view my (About) page. I hope you found this information useful.
Welcome to visit this blog again. I will be keeping this Blog up to date with new (Information About My Art and Artist Resources). If you like what I am releasing into the world, feel free to follow the journey on Instagram or Subscribe to my Newsletter for the latest updates and new artworks. |
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