SI #6

For this Sustained Investigation I wanted to try some pottery. I made an "imperfect" plate and painted some weirdly shaped fruits like cherries, a carrot, pear, banana, strawberries, an apple, and a lemon. I painted a simple outline of a hand reaching to grab the fruits and a border or vines and squiggles.

I first made a bumpy plate out of clay. After it was bone dry I painted it with underglazes of different colors. I started with 3 layers of white as a base and then did the vines in emerald green. The next part was the fruits that actually took a long time because of the many layers I had to do. Lastly, I did the hand in black underglaze and added some little green polka dots in the background. Once all the paint was dried the plate was fired. I had to chip off some parts of another pot that had exploded in the kiln from my plate, but it wasn't very hard and came off easily.

I wanted to experiment with painting on pottery because I was inspired by a technique called "Wabi Sabi" where people purposely put imperfections on their art especially pottery because they think imperfections make it perfect. I thought this idea fit perfectly into my concentration so I made the plate all bumpy and weird looking. The fruits are also imperfect, but I wanted to make the hand reaching for them because it's like they're still wanted even with imperfections. I don't love the final product because I think it looks a little childish, but I do want to experiment with more plates and painted pottery.