Marie EvB Gibbons

​Marie has worked in clay for over 20 years and used post-fired finishes on her work for over 18 years.  Her method of finishing her work has truly become her signature element.
She worked in Raku, and low fire glazes for the first 2 - 3 years of her clay work.  Marie became tired of the choices she had with glazes that were available to her, as well as wanting to avoid multiple firings to a piece, risking the piece to the kiln, or being unhappy with the results of her glazing.
​She decided to experiment with other media in the finishing of her work, and having some experience with acrylics, it felt a logical direction to head.
Painting on clay, also called post-fired finishes or cold finishes, gives ceramic artists more control over the color that they want to display on their clay sculptures. Ceramic artists use acrylic paints on the clay instead of pottery glazes for this decorating method where the colors are much more predicted than with normal glazing and kiln firing.
Marie designs her artwork on her laptop to get the right colors for the objects, makes the sculpture with clay, fires it to a low temperature, and finishes it off with acrylic paints.

​Her online class is Post-fired Finishes.
In her own words: 
As I do not create functional work, such as table ware, I saw no reason to let glazing limit the end result of my pieces. Besides the aesthetic qualities that I was after, there were also metaphorical elements that could be strengthened with the right finish.  For me, I always felt that "the ends justified the means", I want to get my final vision for a piece, and will use whatever means needed to obtain it. I hope you will find post fired finishes as exciting and fulfilling to your work as I do, and most importantly, that this e-course will be a jumping point for you in the way you complete your work.

Antoinette Badenhorst interviews Marie EvB Gibbons

Student reviews:
The instructor is clearly an expert in her art, and she delivered the instructions in a way I expect most artists can follow easily. Gypsy Emerick (Colorado)