Day 6: Taking Things Further II

This is my piece of plaster that I made at the beginning, but this time I carved out the symbol of fire from the image I put onto the plate earlier on. I did this by first putting the plaster into some water for two minutes to soften it, followed by getting a small knife used for ceramics to carve out the image. Once I carved the image into the plaster I started to cut away at it with a chisel then smoothed it over to create the image of fire onto the tablet. I did think about adding from ink to colour it but I think it would’ve ruined it if I did. The images below show how the image I did on the plate is the same as the one I did on the plaster, and the other image is a close up of the plaster image.

I really enjoyed doing this and had a lot of fun while carving it out, although it took a lot of time and precision. As of yet I'm not sure how to take this further but I would really like to. This piece was really inspired by Jennifer McCurdy by the way her work would be nice and smooth with using porcelain. Although I used plaster, there are definate smililarties between the two materials. They're both smooth, white, and used in ceramics so I might go further into ceramics for this piece.

Day 5: Taking Things Further

This is the symbol of fire I had made earlier on acrylic and I did decide on taking it further by making out a paper model. I made it by making two paper templates, getting some string, and used glue to put it all together. I glued the string to one of the templates, and then glued the second template on top to make a kind of mobile. I’m thinking about going with this even further, maybe making a metal mobile. Below are images of the two templates before I put them together, then another of what it looked like laying down on a table (The image above is where it's being held up by the string).

I think this went really well as I plan to take it even further by making a metal mobile out of this design. My next step will be to measure out what I'll need and to make a metal template before making the mobile so both sides are equal. On the paper model you can easily see that the two sides didn't go together perfectly.

Day 4: The Symbol of Fire

This is an image of fire that I made with black tape onto another piece of white acrylic. I think I might take this further later on. It’s meant to show when Prometheus gave fire to man. I also think that this went really well as I really like this image so I feel inspired to take this even further. My next step will be thinking of how to take this further, through models perhaps.

This is a ceramic plate that I bought from a charity shop as it reminded me of the old ceramics used in ancient Greek. I put on the patterns with black and grey tape by cutting away at the tape with a scalpel then putting them onto the plate. It’s meant to show the image of fire that Prometheus gave to man to get them out of misery. This image, I think, went really well onto the plate like it did on the paper and I enjoyed doing it. By taking it further I think I'll put this image onto the plaster.

Day 3 Continued: Man in God's Image

These are pictures of what I did with white and black tape on an old piece of acrylic. One side I made all black with the black tape then cut away the image of man with a scalpel while I made letters to spell out ‘Man in’ with white tape. On the other side I put the image of man that I had cut out onto the middle of the acrylic and spelled out ‘God’s image’ with black tape instead of white. It shows how Prometheus created man in God’s image.

I think that this went really well as it also shows, in a way, yin and yang, black and white, etc; many differences between people in the world. My next step will to take this further in my work and maybe try to bring the idea of differences into my work with Prometheus.

Day 3: Rubbings of Words & Letters

This is an image of a rubbing I did from a grave, padlock, and another grave. All of the rubbings are together in my research folder with my life drawings, and I did these rubbings as the text used is quite old and reminds me of what they used back in ancient Greek myths. I think all the rubbings went really well, though some did look a little strange as I couldn't get them all done completely. My next step with these rubbings will be to try and bring them into my work on the story of Prometheus.

Day 2 Continued: Bringing in my Life Drawings

This drawing was done by me thanks to a picture in my research that I used as a reference and from a picture I drew from life drawing. I drew it out first with chalk on the black paper before I added colour with different coloured chalks. Afterwards I smudged it. This is supposed to me Prometheus on the rock that he was tied to by Zeus where he would get his liver eaten out by a giant eagle once every day.

This is another picture I did thanks to the references I have in my research, including the pictures I drew in life drawing. In this picture I started with black pastel for the outline of his body and white chalk on other parts of his body. His hair I did with a brown pastel, and the red, orange, and yellow stains were done with ink. It shows Prometheus taking the fire from the sun for the humans down on Earth.

I think that both of these drawings were a lot of fun to do and came out really well. I was really inspired by Derek Hess and Egon Schiele with these drawings and I hope that people can see that.

Day 2: Handmade Paper & Life Drawing

This is a piece of paper that I made myself. To do this I took some torn up pieces of paper and put them into a blender with some water. Once it was a fine mush, I put it into a wooden box that was in a plastic tub with water in the bottom. I spread out the fine mush onto the piece of mesh that was at the bottom of the wooden box, waited for it to settle, and then slowly took out the wooden box from the plastic tub. After I took the box out I disconnected the wooden box base from the mesh and slowly took out my piece of paper. I let it dry to turn into my fine piece of paper.

I found that this also went really well, except that some how a corner had been ripped off but I still love it. My next step will be finding a way to bring this piece of paper into my work.

This is a piece of paper that I had made earlier but I had then cut it, burned the edges of it, and I used a lighter to do this as well as hover it under the paper to burn pieces of it. Afterwards I used watercolours to paint lightly on it to make this image of fire. I made this other image as I was thinking about what I'd put onto my piece of plaster that I had made on day 1. My next step will to take this further, maybe by putting it onto my plaster tablet.

This is a picture of the life drawings I did that I thought might come in handy later on. I cused charcoal and chalk for these different pictures, all done in slightly different styles. 

I found that this went really well even though I had to draw a naked guy and in my next step with this I'll try to find a way to bring my life drawings into my work with Prometheus.

Day 1 Continued: Making my Plaster Tablet

I made this tablet out of plaster for later when I’d carve out of it a symbol for my work. To make this I started with a piece of concrete tablet, and then put wet clay around the tablet before taking the concrete out of the middle. Once I did that I mixed some plaster and poured it into the clay, then put a wire mesh into it to give it structure so it wouldn’t break. I waited for the plaster dry before putting on another layer of plaster, and then also waited for that to dry before taking off the clay from around the plaster mould.

I feel that this went really well as I really enjoyed doing this and in my next step I plan to carve out a symbol into the plaster. The ceramic artist Jennifer McCurdy really inspired me with her work when I started with the plaster.