Sketches

Well to start, my sketchbook is my personal journal. I free write and sketch out ideas, usually pertaining to my ceramics, but sometimes these small sketches are ideas for my drawings. None of the sketches in my sketchbook are actually completed; they usually take me a short amount of time. I like to sketch them quickly so I can get all of my ideas out before I forget and new ideas arrive. Also with my sketches there is usually always writing whether it is how I feel at the moment or a song lyric or a poem. I think this is something that keeps coming up in my artwork and I need to figure out how to incorporate the writing into my work. I have been looking at work by Hella Jongerius . She does a lot of ceramic work as well as modern furniture design. Her ceramic pieces are beautiful and she has a great way of incorporating her figures into vessel forms. I have also been looking at Ken Fergusons work. He also incorporates his sculptural elements into the vessel forms, and does it in a way with much purposefulness.

My first sketch is actually a sketch that I brought to life in a model in ceramics. I have a lot of these headless figures throughout my sketchbook. They are confused figures looking for their heads or minds. As you can see the figure in this sketch is being overcome by a blanket like form. The blanket of the back of the figure is supposed to represent some sort of emotional burden or weight on the shoulders; something that would bring a person down.

My second sketch is a combination of my free writing and some sketches of a form. This particular form came to me in my sketches one day and after that I decided to bring it to life in ceramics. It is almost like a half pitcher half planter, that’s kind of the only way I am ever able to describe it. With this form, I had a hard time getting it the way that I could see it in my head, therefore I made many models and practiced drawing the form not only in my sketchbook, but also at a larger scale.

My last sketch is again my headless figures. In this particular sketch though I was trying to figure out how to draw one of the arms reaching up and then bending in. I found it difficult to draw because of the way that the 2 segments of the arms overlapped. Also in the top right corner of the page is another sketch of another piece that I made in ceramics. The words and sketch on the left are of a bag. I have been making these sac-like forms out of porcelain that I love and really speak a lot about emptiness.