Anne's Art Blog

my fired ceramic “quilt”

Anne Shulenberger — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:37:26 +0000

I was disappointed to find that my ceramic quilt had cracked when it was fired. However I am now determined to use it in a mixed media piece for the Art Tag series on Patterns - when that’s done I will post a photo here. Stay tuned!

my ceramic “quilt” in its penultimate stage

Anne Shulenberger — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:29:43 +0000

my sampler quilt all glazed & ready for the kiln

I finished glazing the bisque-fired ceramic “quilt” yesterday; now it’s waiting to be high-fired. The colors will all be different after that, as will the surface textures! Many hours of work went into the decoration of this piece; I hope it turns out well.

I have decided that it will be the 3rd in my series about Patterns, so I’ll be showing it to the Art Tag group when we have our meeting in SF this coming Sunday. No time to do anything over – whatever it is, that’s what it will be .

an altered book – painting my ceramic “quilt” with Majolica decorations

Anne Shulenberger — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:21:59 +0000

: 2 pages of an altered book for my art group’s round robin

The left page of the altered book shown above is my doing. It’s one of the books my women’s art group is currently passing around in a round-robin project. Several of the words on that page were compounds beginning with fire.

Below is a detail of my bisque- fired ceramic “quilt” which I’ve painted with Majolica glazes. The other 3 sections of the piece will be much more simply decorated – this part took several hours of painstaking work! It’s going to be a sampler of different ways to glaze ceramics, that’s my plan (an unfired version of the quilt was pictured in my previous post).

a new year – a new “quilt” made of clay

Anne Shulenberger — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:46:55 +0000

On the last day of last year I started a new ceramic project: a small ”quilt” made of clay. I wanted to try out something from an article I downloaded from the Ceramic Arts Daily website, which had quite good instructions about how to construct it. As you can see, I used all sorts of different textures & patterns, and I plan to experiment with various glazes, underglazes, etc, making it a sampler of sorts. I’m not sure yet, but it may become my 3rd Art Tag piece in the series about Patterns. The snapshot shown here is of the piece when it’s still damp clay, of course. When finished it will be a plaque which can be hung on a wall (if it turns out well), and I may make some more along the same lines - stay tuned!

this ceramic "Quilt" is about 11 " square

Best wishes for the new year to one & all – hope you find the time to make art in 2012!

my Open Studio

Anne Shulenberger — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:07:27 +0000

I’ve been busy – here I am at my Open Studio a few days ago. There’ve been a lot of nice people coming though, however sales haven’t been as good as we’d like. But we’re there for the duration! One more weekend, plus one of us (my studio-mate or I) will be there every afternoon from at least 1 to 4 during the last week before Christmas!

Art Tag: a mobile on the subject of Patterns

Anne Shulenberger — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:18:27 +0000

A couple of days ago I sent off my first art piece in the current Art Tag series dealing our current theme, Patterns. It’s a hanging mobile I put together of hard plastic pieces that I made with that Shinky-Dink material, connected with colored wire. Each of the round-ish pieces has words related to the topic on one side and a visual pattern on the other; both sides shown above. It was a fun project to do; the next thing I make for Art Tag will be totally different, though! Stay tuned..

another raku-fired goddess

Anne Shulenberger — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:39:39 +0000

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Venus - raku-fired version [1

I’ve made another raku-fired goddess: Venus. It’s not a vase this time, but a wall sculpture. I used “Skip’s Copper” for the border and “G.G. Green” for the rest of this piece - however there’s more red than green, as you can see. It’s always interesting to see how things come out. With raku they’re never the same! It feels like an alchemical process..

my new Frida wall plaque

Anne Shulenberger — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:25:07 +0000

Here’s my latest ceramic Frida plaque, on which I’ve used various underglazes and glazes .. it’s all a learning process. Now I’m going over to the ceramics studio to see some other things which have just come out of the kiln. Stay tuned!

my new raku fired Buddha plaque

Anne Shulenberger — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:52:19 +0000

We were completely socked in yesterday and there was drizzle or mist coming down off and on all day. It was warm and humid and actually quite enjoyable to be out in – and fortunately the wet weather didn’t affect our weekly raku firing!

There were 4 of us firing things and we had so many pieces that we had to do two loads. However the second firing took much less time than the first, since the kiln was already quite warm. This time we all took our pieces out of the cans with the burned paper in them after only 20 to 40 minutes. It’s very exciting, seeing what magic the heat and the ashes have wrought! My favorite piece from this firing is the Buddha plaque shown above. I am learning as I go and having fun..

vase with 3 dancers & sunflowers – final version

Anne Shulenberger — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:06:13 +0000

My blue vase with the dancers & flowers came out much better the third time; after the second reglazing of the blue parts I am fairly well satisfied with it. I certainly don’t want to do any more work on it! And now I have some ideas of how to do it better next time. It’s all part of the learning process, since everything about glazes, underglazes, etc, is new to me. Tomorrow I am going to raku fire several more pieces, which should be interesting. Never a dull moment!