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The inspiration
The inspiration
The inspiration for my artwork was myself, I just wanted to create a mug that was cute and I would personally use. My artwork can be used to express the social issue that appearance is not everything. The face of my mug has many imperfections, just like we see in society daily. Also she is not photoshopped. I wanted to create a feeling of joy by looking at my mug. I chose to do a different mouth than everyone else, and I sculpted a smile with the tongue sticking out. I feel that this adds a silly and light hearted vibe to my piece that almost everyone would love to have.
How I created it
How I created it
I started by visualizing the size and shape of the mug that I wanted to create. Then I began the physical work of the project by making a pinch pot out of soft moldable grey clay. After creating my pinch pot, I started rolling coils and scoring and slipping each one to the pinch pot and to the coil below it. I used about 6 or 7 coils to build my mug up to the height I desired. Then it was time to smooth out the inside and outside and even the top border. After smoothing I began to do the face, I started with the nose which was slender and had a bulbous tip. I added clay by scoring and slipping the mug and a ball of clay together then I sculpted it. Next I did the mouth which was a smile with a tongue sticking out, then I did the cheek bones by scoring and slipping an oval of clay and then sculpting. Next I did the eyes and used my sharp skinny tool to make the pupils and I did another smaller hole to resemble an eye sparkle. I finished the project off by making a large, thick coil and scoring and slipping both ends of the coil onto the mug to create my handle. Lastly, I painted a layer of slip (water mixed with the grey clay) onto the entirety of the mug besides the face.
The purpose of this piece is to relax those who look at it. The roses are meant to add a romantic element and give a romance feel to the viewer. The textures on the leaves of the roses are effective in making the rose shaped coils look more like a flower than a spiral. Then there is a row of half spheres on one side and a row on the other side. Having the two roses mirror each other and then the two rows of half spheres mirror each other makes the piece satisfying. The viewer's eyes are initially drawn to the half spheres with a hole in the center because the simplicity of it in contrast to the roses draws attention to them.
The swirl of the rose makes the audience feel relaxed. Then in order to make the piece even more relaxing and interesting the artist added two simple elements of rows of half spheres to make the roses pop more. It’s like wearing red lipstick is the rose and doing the rest of your makeup neutral is the rows of half spheres. What the art says to me is things aren’t always perfect in the details but the overall outcome can still be beautiful. The purpose of this piece is to be a sophisticated house decoration for a table or a mantle.
There is one part on the starry night side that has a lot of empty space and is filled with mandalas. This adds emphasis on the starry night part because it draws attention towards it, as well as making the sculpture look neater. On the other side, there is a big zoomed in portion of a mandala off center left which draws the viewer's attention. On that same size there are darker lines that make cloud-like shapes everywhere which are then filled in with different zentangle patterns. This helps the piece flow better and eases the viewer's eye. I created this piece in order to make the viewer feel calm or relaxed. It includes a lot of “static” lines aka horizontal or vertical lines which makes the piece feel chill and not so energetic. I think this piece directly relates to the vibe I personally put out. I included the Starry night portion because I am Italian and ever since I was little, I have been going to museums and the starry night was always my favorite one. While both sides are very calm, the one with the starry night portion is slightly more calm than the other side.
The inspiration for my artwork was my cat, Peter. I am allergic to cats and I hate him so I wanted to make the face of the cat scowling for my mug. I was trying to convey a sneaky or evil emotion because that is what my cat acts like. He is always sneaking into my room which then gives me a reaction. Also he loves to bite and scratch me which I do not enjoy. However, my mom loves him so I think she would really enjoy my handle-less mug of him. My goals for this project were to execute it to the best of my abilities and to have fun doing it. I really enjoyed this type of clay we used, as I found it easier to mold and smoother. I think the texture and consistency of this clay was a crucial part that led to my success in the project. This artwork did help me reach my goal of creating a mug my mom would love to use. Through working on this project I learned I am pretty decent at ceramics and I can manipulate the clay to show anything I want. Typically, I don’t watch the tutorials and just use to hands to try and create the image in my mind.
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