Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the warmer weather as we creep closer to summer! I’ve been hard at work in the studio over the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t been able to enjoy it as much as I’d like. It’s the end of the semester, so there’s no time for dilly-dallying! Luckily, I got everything done that I needed to, and now it’s time to glaze, glaze, glaze! I don’t have a lot to show for it, but I’ll show a little bit of what I’ve been up to in the ceramics studio. Then, I have a couple of things I’ve been working on in my Printmaking class that I also want to share!

First, I finished all the pieces I was working on so they could dry and be bisque fired over Easter break. I threw the rest of the bowls I mentioned in my last post, trimmed them, and cleaned them up. I also threw some small vases and a few more of those mini lighthouses I mentioned briefly in my last post. I’ve also been glazing pieces whenever I get the chance to get ahead.  I glazed the first lighthouse I made as a kind of tester for the rest of them, and then a couple of other pieces that I had lying around. Here are a few pictures.

Beyond my ceramics studio endeavors, I’ve also been working in the printmaking studio with Prof Christine Medley, getting results I’m extremely happy with. The last time I talked about my Printmaking class, I showed you a zinc etching I made. Since then, I have done another zinc etching, but this time I added a technique called aquatint, which adds tone to the plate. I used a photo that my aunt took of a landscape located near my hometown as my reference. I went through the normal process: coat the plate in asphaltum, trace the image onto the surface, carve into the asphaltum, then place the plate in the acid to etch. However, once I finished that process, I continued with the aquatint. The process, in short, requires painting asphaltum on the surface to cover different areas, and then leaving the plate in the acid for short periods to etch. When the process is repeated over multiple sessions, you can cover different areas of the plate to create gradual plate tones. It was hard to wrap my head around the process, but I’m glad I decided to try it out anyway because it improved my etching so much. I’ll show you the difference between the etching with and without the aquatint. I’m so happy with how it turned out in the end.

I’m thrilled with how much I’ve gotten done in the past couple of weeks! I’m excited to get back into the studio and get to glazing! I hope you all enjoyed the updates. There is a lot more to come! Thanks for reading and stay creative 🙂

-Jenna