Friday, October 26, 2007

Older work





Since I can't share pictures of what I'm currently working on (lottery horses), here is an older piece. This fellow was done from Paul Sanders' "Oatsville" in September 2002, so almost exactly five years ago. He is one of the few pieces that have remained in my personal collection over the years.

He is interesting from a technical standpoint because he was painted backwards. One of the more unusual qualities of underglazes is that lighter colors sink beneath darker colors. This makes it possible to add all manner of shading to the body (like the dappling on this guy's shoulders) first, get them just so, and then add the base color on top. This is useful because dappling is typically done with erasers which can damage the chalky base colors.

But it is a leap of faith, because the darker details cannot be seen until after the clear glaze has been added and fired. With a buckskin like this one, the horse looks unpleasantly yellow, and just have to trust that when you open the kiln the next morning he will be dappled. For a former obsessive cold-painter, it's an excellent excercise in giving up some control!

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