Character Designs for a Fantasy Story: God of Techne. Pencil and colored pencil on toned paper. 9”x4”

The Greek god Hephaestus was, despite the fact that he made the arms and armor of nearly every great hero, not a greatly respected god. He was essentially the god of the mechanic arts, which were considered to be vulgar and common. He gained some respect from the somewhat more pragmatic Romans as Vulcan, but remained a lesser figure. For my story, I’m conflating him with Prometheus, the Titan god who created humanity from clay and gave them fire; Vulcan/Hephaestus was a craftsman and associated with fire by way of the forge, so the combination almost made itself. 

I’ve retained for him Hephaestus’s lameness (though I’m changing the story behind it) and given him, as seems only natural, technological devices to help him deal with it: an armor-like leg-brace and a walking stick that is quite literally a walking stick. If these seem overly advanced or steampunk, keep in mind that Hephaestus/Vulcan was supposed to be aided by humanlike automatons he built himself. I’ll have to design some of those later…

Yet another drawing preview from Spain! Seeing all sorts of ancient sites and sights is truly inspiring. #artstagram #drawing #pencil (at Valencia, Spain)

Another drawing preview from distant Spain! #drawing #artstagram (at Valencia, Spain)

Two small vessels. White stoneware with celadon and “oasis blue” glaze. 3”x3”x3” and 3”x3”x2.5”

Here are some little pieces I made to play around with shapes. This ceramics class was really the first time I did serious work in a 3D, non-planar (fabric is essentially planar) medium, so I had a lot of experimenting to do. These are probably just decorative, although I might use the one on the right as an inkwell or waterwell for painting at some point. 

The glazing was sort of an experiment in laziness and semi-necessity that ended up coming out wonderfully. I wanted to use this “oasis blue” glaze, but there was only a little bit at the bottom of the bucket thereof, so I couldn’t fully dip the pieces. So I decided on half-and-half with celadon. But I didn’t want to worry about the complicated (and difficult to get right – i.e. without the glaze spilling and running everywhere) methods of glazing the outside one color and the inside another, etc. So I went for diagonal. It was super easy, and it looks awesome! I love that unexpected blue stripe that appeared where the glazes meet. I ended up doing this for another piece that I’ll post later.

Grecianesque mug. White stoneware, unglazed. 5”x6”x3”

I suppose this is technically a WIP, since I will eventually be glazing this; right now it can’t be used as a drinking vessel, since it’s unglazed and the clay remains porous. 

As you can probably tell, this piece was inspired by ancient Greek pottery; I love Greek pottery, and that love was my whole reason for taking ceramics. I tried to  give all my pieces a little classical flare. The body of the mug is in two pieces; a round-bottomed cup part, and a ring for the base, which was thrown separately. The handle was slab built.

Doing some #drawing in #spain — trying to loosen my line up a little. I don’t have my scanner so it’s going on #artstagram . I’ll do a repost of this on tumblr later on with full info + better scan. (at Valencia, Spain)

Untitled. White stoneware with celadon glaze. 6”x6”x1.5”

Ready for ceramics madness? ‘Cause I’ve got a ton of ceramics things from my class. (This is just the one plate shown at two angles.)

Character Designs for a Fantasy Story: Queen of Earth. Pencil and colored pencil on toned paper. 9”x6”

The Roman Juno is a goddess of marriage, fertility, and youth or vital energy. It seemed only natural, then, to combine her with Ceres/Demeter, goddess of agriculture, since, in ancient ritual, sexual fertility and agricultural fertility were often conflated, and since Juno’s ever-renewing natural vigor maps so well onto the renewal of earth with the seasons. It’s also very appropriate, given that the king of the gods is a sky father, that their queen should be an earth mother, as had been the case, in the first generation of gods, with Ouranos and Gaea. 

I had a hell of a time designing her outfit. I had originally given her essentially a Roman matron’s outfit, but it looked neither youthful enough nor unique enough. The look I settled on is inspired by (the Romanized version of) Isis, who is also a queen goddess and was often compared to Demeter, combined with some Egyptian, and some fanciful, elements. The snakes represent the chthonic aspects of an agricultural deity: agriculture deals with burying things in the ground, after all. There’s a practical aspect to this too, as snakes eat many of the small critters (mice, rabbits, various bugs, etc.) that tend to destroy crops.

Untitled. White stoneware with celadon glaze and cobalt oxide. 3”x3”x2.5”

I’ve been taking a pottery class for the last few weeks (Check out my teacher’s work!). This is my first finished (thrown, trimmed, bisqued, glazed… there are a lot of steps!) piece. Wheel throwing is really fun, and totally different from any other art form – like being a guitarist and trying to play the drums, where the sensibility of music, or in this case aesthetics, will help you, but the coordination of physical action is completely different. This piece uses a celadon glaze with an undercoating of cobalt oxide on the top. I like the combo and may use it again in other pieces. 

Sorry about the mediocre photo quality; my iPhone is my only camera right now. The celadon green, which is a color I love, is not all that well communicated in the photo, even after a fair amount of tweaking, though I kind of like how livid the blue looks.