Blog for TeachinArt online art school

Painting on clay sculptures with Kathlyn J Avila-Reys

10/31/2019

Kathlyn J Avila-Reys is a ceramic artist who paint emotions and special effects on her clay sculptures. She completed the Post-fired Finishes class of Marie EVB Gibbons at TeachinArt.
Here is Kathlyn in her own words.

I am an Alexandria, Virginia based artist that taught special needs students and art for 30 years for Fairfax Co. Public Schools. As a life long educator, I have planned and taught workshops for various local community organizations as well as for the Smithsonian Institution, the African American Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Two of my most favorite workshops I developed and organized was in Oaxaca, Mexico for disabled women and in Ayacucho, Peru for women that had been victimized by the terrorist group, “The Shining Path”.

After my retirement, I missed teaching and researching new ideas to create lessons so I began taking ceramic classes, which I absolutely loved! Even though I had taught ceramics for elementary school students, the classes I took exposed me to a broader aspect of what I could do with clay. After two years of taking classes, I was asked to teach a children’s class, and then, to teach a creative hand building class for adults. As my adult class grew, I decided to focus only on the adults and once again retired from teaching the kids.

I have exhibited my work at numerous galleries, universities, and institutions. I have received a number of awards and certificates, as well as being selected to have a solo show entitled, “No Ordinary Woman”. The theme of this show grew out of my childhood interest in the women in my community, especially those considered to have “special powers”- whether real or imagined. Although I’m inspired by people I have encountered, my figures embody “familiar souls” that viewers can recognize regardless of where or when they grew up. Each of my figures is an expression of a unique individual, whose story is told through adornment, symbolism, and gesture.

Color, pattern, and texture intrigues me which promotes an open playground for ceramics and the ability to explore many of its possibilities. I have always been a doll maker, but the transition of making cloth dolls to ceramic figures has given me a broader enjoyment and satisfaction in the process of their creation. I love the idea of working with a medium that
challenges me to transform a ball of clay into forms and figures that become characters based on my life and imagination. Working in clay has become my mental retreat, my vacation away from the world, my hands are happiest when in the process of construction. My intricate style echoes the influences of African, Native American and Latin American cultures. I uniquely design my work with an ensemble of metaphysical symbolism and color, which then captures an aura of mysticism, magic,
and spirituality.

I create my sculptures through hand building techniques. I’m continually exploring the number of ways I can manipulate the clay to create very textural surfaces. I like the idea of being able to visually explore every aspect of the sculpture with curiosity and discoveries of what can be appealing as well as tactually stimulating. I’ll use all techniques of hand building, pinching, coiling, and slabs. I have an arsenal of approaches for the surface design, slip trailing, stamping, appliqué, and using nichrome wire are just a few of my favorites.

Although I do use traditional glazes to decorate my pieces, I don’t necessarily stop at glazes alone to decorate my work. I like to extend that yearning for texture into my surface treatments. I do a lot of experimentation in glaze combinations as well as other mediums of paints such as oils, enamels, acrylics, chalk paint, and latex. My sewing background has followed me into this genre in the area of mixing media such as dipping cloth into slip, adding non traditional elements to the clay body, even dipping metal into slip to create fragile appendages.

Finding Marie Gibbons class, Post Fired Finishes, has opened up a new door for me in completing my work. Even though I had been using acrylics in my work before, the paint left my work looking flat and plastic. I love how Marie has taught me how to add more dimension to my work with her layering style of colors. As an educator, I never feel like I know so much, that I can’t learn more. Learning new techniques excites me, it keeps the thrill of creating fresh and explorative.

The format that TeachinArt uses to teach their classes is fantastic, informative, detailed instruction on the technique, and sequentially builds on the procedure. Marie is down to earth in her approach to teaching, which left me feeling like I had known her for years. I have been highly inspired by taking this class and very appreciative for having the opportunity to take this class.

Links:
E-courses (online workshops) at TeachinArt
Preview E-courses
Our Art Instructors
China painting with Paul Lewing
Demonstrations, tips & techniques

Tags:
#paintingonclay #claysculptures #clayartist #Virginiapotter #handmade #clayshares #teachinart

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Glazing tips: Prepare your pottery for successful glazing

10/23/2019

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If you are a potter, how many times have you found a lid stuck to a teapot or lidded box due to the glazing? How many times have you wiped off glaze that you should not have wiped off? How many times did you loose a lovely teapot because you had to break the lid loose from the teapot?

These pictures below are examples of the glazing challenges that potters experience when making anything with a lid on.

Glazing fault. The teapot broke when the lid was forced off.

Another glaze fault. The lid got stuck during firing and had to be removed with force from the teapot

Connie shows the teapot set that she created during the online class.

Connie Christensen is a ceramic artist from Denver, Colorado and is one of the online art instructors at TeachinArt. She explains how to prevent some of the glazing problems that makes life difficult for potters. Her first online class at TeachinArt (Faceted teapot set) was to teach pottery students how to throw a proper tea set on the wheel - using porcelain clay. She used wiggle wire as the decoration tool for the faceting and demonstrated how to make a cane handle for the teapot. She is also the instructor of the Shino glazing online class.

In the online class, Connie discuss glazing challenges and shows easy techniques for preparing pots for successful glazing.

Links:
Faceted teapot set e-course with Connie Christensen
Shino glazing e-course with Connie Christensen
Glazing made easy e-course with Antoinette Badenhorst (guest artist Lynn Barnwell)
E-courses (online classes) at TeachinArt
Demonstrations, tips and techniques
Our art instructors

Tags:
#facetedteapots #porcelainteapots #makingteapots #teachingartist #Coloradopotter #teachinart #ceramicschool #teapotset #clayteapot

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Tips: How to use balloons for translucent handmade porcelain bowls

10/21/2019

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Sculpting with porcelain is possible if you understand the character of the clay. Antoinette Badenhorst, ceramic artist from Mississippi uses different techniques to build her porcelain sculptures. Balloons are one of the techniques.

She demonstrates in this video how to use a balloon to make a translucent porcelain bowl that can be used as part of a bigger handmade project. She shows in the video that the balloon shaped bowl may also be used as part of a porcelain dinner set. The size and shape of the balloon will dictate the size and shape of the bowl.

Links:
E-courses (online workshops)
Preview E-courses
Demonstrations, tips & techniques

Our Art Instructors
Understanding Porcelain
Porcelain handbuilding

Tags:
#sculptingclay #translucentporcelain #ceramicschool #porcelainsculptures #claysculptures #potterytips #teachinart

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Tips for preserving paper clay with Antoinette Badenhorst

10/18/2019

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Paper clay is many times used by ceramic artists to make the construction of sculptures easier. Antoinette Badenhorst demonstrates how she uses paper clay to create translucent porcelain vessels. Paper clay burns out in the pottery kiln and does not really affects the final outcome of the sculpture. It helps with the forming and sculpturing.

Carving with porcelain clay may be challenging because of the paper that is in the clay.

If you store the wet paper clay, it changes color and does not have a good smell.

The tip for storing paper clay is to roll it into a tile. Let it dry out completely. Store it as you will store normal tiles. No smell, no hustle, no coloring.

When you want to use it again, wrap it in a wet cloth like a towel. Let it soak in the water for about an hour. Unwrap the towel and use the paper clay as if you just made it.

Links:
Understanding porcelain e-course with Antoinette Badenhorst
Porcelain handbuilding e-course with Antoinette Badenhorst
E-courses (online workshops) at TeachinArt
Demonstrations, tips and techniques (Tips shared by teachers of TeachinArt)
Preview e-courses (take a quick peek into our online workshops)
Art Instructors (Meet our online art instructors)

Tags:
#paperclay #paperporcelain #translucentporcelain #recycleclay

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Artist expression of memory loss

10/7/2019

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Dementia is a brain disease that causes a long-term and often gradual memory loss and decrease in the ability to think. It affects a person's daily functioning and family members have to learn to cope with something that they do not understand.

Marie EVB Gibbons is one of the online instructors at TeachinArt who teaches the online workshop, post-fired finishes. She shows in her online class how to paint with acrylics on clay. She makes her own clay sculptures and each of these is used to tell a life story.
Her dad went through the struggles of dementia, and as an artist, she tried to understand what it means to loose your memory and mind. Here is Marie in her own words. She uses her clay sculptures and acrylic paints to express the emotions and sadness of dealing with dementia (loss of memory).

Marie's visual display of dementia - loosing your mind.

There are many emotions involved when people who you love loose their mind and memory.

I watched this video again - of me speaking about what I was trying to figure out about dementia, and I look at that now and think, wow, those were the good old days.
That is when my Dad could acknowledge his malfunctioning memory, but still manage to move forward, and live his life.

Now, my Dad is living in a memory care facility. He is in a constant state of not knowing, not understanding, not remembering.
Now, he tries so hard to gain an understanding of why. Why is he there. What has happened to him. What is being done to help him.

The saddest part - in my opinion, is that you can't explain to a person with dementia that they have dementia.
I think even cancer is a kinder evil. At least someone with cancer can understand there is an evil in their body, an illness.

A person with dementia cannot understand that their brain is dying, it is not working with them anymore, in fact it is working against them. The very thing (the brain) that helps one comprehend, is not an aid in problem solving and analysis, but a tool of distraction. It's like accidentally leaning on the delete button of your keyboard, and all of a sudden being witness to things just erasing, to become unaccessible.

When he doesn't know who I am, he questions if I am someone important to him. I choose to believe that this is proof of the heart's memory. That somehow, in his being, he knows me, but it is not in the traditional way of knowing. When I confirm that I am someone important, that I am his daughter, it brings him to tears, and to feelings of stupidity, and sadness. How can a father forget his child, his wife, his life. I try to comfort him with explanations that might make sense, to both he and I. I like the analogy of an air bubble. I tell him, "I am in an air bubble right now. You can't see the information that goes with me, but the bubble will pop eventually (and hopefully, for a little longer) and then you'll put it all together again, as it is visible, even if just for a moment.

I have to say, I don't know how to process and understand this. I'm trying, but I am not finding the right words, imagery, metaphor.

The best analogy I've come up with lately is "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" an old movie with a story line of aliens stealing people's lives, replacing them with a 'pod' that resembled their physical body but not the same person.

That is dementia to me at this moment.
Something that has stolen my father's mind, life, memories, being. We have this physical body in front of us that tempts us into a belief that maybe, just maybe things could be OK again.

But, that is far from the truth. I find myself mourning a soul, being stuck with a body. It's such a conflict.

Links:
Post-fired finishes e-course with Marie Gibbons
E-courses (online workshops) at TeachinArt online school of art
Preview e-courses at TeachinArt
Demonstrations, tips and techniques

Tags:
#paintingonclay #postfiredfinishes #mariegibbons #teachinart #dementia #memoryloss #arteducation #teachingart #claysculpture #acrylicpainting

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Coloring and weaving of wool in the Rockies

10/5/2019

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Catto Center at Toklat in the Rocky mountains

Toklat, meaning “headwaters,” was built as a wilderness lodge and family home by Stuart Mace and his wife Isabel in 1948. Located near the headwaters of Castle Creek near Aspen in the Rocky Mountains, this serves now as a gathering place for cultural and ecological discourse.

With the help of Jessica Hobby Catto and her husband Henry, ACES (Aspen Center for Environmental Studies) bought Toklat in 2004 to preserve Stuart’s legacy.

Elena Gonzalez Ruiz, a native of Oaxaca in Mexico, and her family have been part of the Catto Center at Toklat even before it became an ACES' site.

She has been a long-standing Artist-in-Residence at the Center, traveling back to the Castle Creek valley each summer. Elena contributes to ACES’ mission by providing educational opportunities related to traditional and environmentally-responsible textile production.

According to Elena, they have about 7,000 people in her village with about 4,000 weavers. Most of the coloring and dyeing ingredients like the indigo plant are grown by her people. They count the minutes that the yarn is kept in the coloring bucket to get the colors needed for the individual carpets, handbags and other wool projects.

Links:
E-courses (online workshops) at TeachinArt
Demonstrations (Tips shared by teachers of TeachinArt)
Preview e-courses (take a quick peek into our online workshops)
Art Instructors (Meet our online art instructors)

Tags:
#weaving #coloringwool #naturalcoloring #aspen #coloradoartists #Rockymountains #cattocenter #ACES

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Painting on clay sculptures with Kathlyn J Avila-Reys

Glazing tips: Prepare your pottery for successful glazing

Tips: How to use balloons for translucent handmade porcelain bowls

Tips for preserving paper clay with Antoinette Badenhorst

Artist expression of memory loss

Coloring and weaving of wool in the Rockies

Catto Center at Toklat in the Rocky mountains

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Painting on clay sculptures with Kathlyn J Avila-Reys

Glazing tips: Prepare your pottery for successful glazing

Tips: How to use balloons for translucent handmade porcelain bowls

Tips for preserving paper clay with Antoinette Badenhorst

Artist expression of memory loss

Coloring and weaving of wool in the Rockies

​Catto Center at Toklat in the Rocky mountains

Author

Categories

Archives

Links to other pages

Workshops by categories

Catto Center at Toklat in the Rocky mountains