moss mugs

Every morning i make a half mile journey from our lovely home to the muni station where I catch the train and go to work. I have about seven minutes between my front door and the steps that deliver me to a morning scented, human sardine can. As I walk, I try to take in as much of the outdoors as possible, knowing that i'll spend the next 8 hours under fluorescent lights, breathing recirculated air. 

I play a game with myself, collecting specimen that represent colors, textures, and shapes that i find moving or creatively stimulating. As part of the process, I collect physical objects (like fallen branches), sketch images, and take photographs. This week's assortment leaned heavily toward mossy greens and rich browns. I thought that an interesting way to translate this visually into my artwork would be to incorporate these varied colors while glazing some mugs i've been working on. 

I started with 3 bisqued mugs of varying sizes. They all had fairly rough surface textures which, for purposes of this project, really excited me. With a 1 inch acrylic paintbrush I applied the same Dark Umber Oxide to each mug, carefully removing some of the stain with a sponge (to create further variation in color saturation). While the oxide itself was the same, the applied pattern varied from piece to piece in order to give each it's own unique personality. 

Once the oxide dried, i applied a single dip of a Celadon glaze to two of the mugs to see what variation i could achieve with oxide and a single glaze alone. On the final mug, i drizzled a bright green glaze, and a turquoise glaze across the outside surface, wiping some away and creating a distressed look. The final mug will be dipped in celadon glaze this week.

I'm excited to see how these all turn out. Pictures to follow in a MOSS MUGS 2.0 post.