Hmm, my first attempt at adding photos, not come out the way I'd planned at all.
Anyway, if you read them from the bottom up, you'll get my first ever cloud painting; above this is the 2nd, and then the 6th one I did that day, using fingernails, paper towels and sheer frustration.
The two at the top (which should have been at the bottom) are from my third week of trying, when the sky was actually blue - at least at the start of our session.
The journey continues...
Meanwhile I've also learned how to print pics off my phone using Bluetooth and Boots in-store technology, so I've been working on my 'sketch book' all evening, annotating blurry images of my various ceramic experiments. Only two weeks left in this term and I'll miss the last day - off to New Zealand to visit family over Christmas etc.
I've been too busy, stressed or ill to keep up my weekly reporting, but I'm still loving the course. The printmaking is less enjoyable than the textiles session which it replaced (we've covered screen printing over 2 weeks), but tomorrow I can return to the textiles room and play with whichever technique I'd like to take further (felt-moulding and silk paper sculpture appeal). The tutor promised me oils for my next cloud paintings, and I've been enjoying a book on Turner from the college library, but I may see if I can capture the colours of yesterday's sunrise with oil pastels first.
Ceramics is currently most exciting, with a book on smoke-firing full of the most beautiful images and descriptions of how the results were achieved. I'm still working on making a glaze from raw ingredients too - eggshells, seashells, flints, all ground up and mixed with powdered clay into a slurry, then sieved - at which point I understood how hard it is to grind flint, even after it's been fired. More elbow grease required yet. Hope to post some pics of pots eventually.
I might manage another post before we leave, but if not Season's Greetings to all my Dear Readers, and I'll be back with more in the New Year.
