Years ago, my business name was Life Forms Pottery. During that time, I made joyful images of naked dancing ladies that celebrated the sensual, celestial, and spiritual aspects of living. I've been lucky to have the pleasure of working with a couple that loved that work. This month I got to take a step back and combine the old work with the new for their custom kitchen backsplash.
This is so exciting! It is beautiful, and I love the magic of the glazes, so mysterious how they transform in the kiln. I love the detail and the balance of shapes and colors and light and dark. I'm immediately putting all kinds of stories into the picture that I didn't even know were there, even though we helped shape and explain some stories during the design. Kind of breathtaking when I gaze at your sublime work. — Deborah A.
Because customer communication is so important, each project produces lots of in-process photos. So I thought I'd share some here for a behind the scenes look at what to expect when hiring an artist.
Step one is to gather your samples, that includes swatches of fabric, paint chips, granite or cabinet samples, and imagery to be included in your mural. These customers came to our first meeting with paint chips and swatches. Although the project dimensions were clear, the fly in the ointment was the placement of the vent hood, that would need figuring out. So at our first meeting, we knew the mural's size, colors, and the basic outline of the design, florals in the foreground, some of my trees, naked dancing ladies, and pollinators. Afterward, I got a follow-up email with several images from the Golden Age of Illustration, that showed me the overall feel the two wanted in the piece.
Images sent by the customer to communicate the desire feeling of the custom art tiles.
At our second meeting, we looked at the start of the drawing, which was about 1/3 done. We fixed the king snake, whose head was the wrong shape, and was too fat, added the milkweed plants which told me where to put the monarchs, and agreed where the naked ladies would be. We also started talking seriously about colors. The most important being the sky, there was going to be lots of it, and it had couldn't just be a flat color. The customer chose a glaze that I was concerned would be too busy, but I was happy to be proven wrong and did a quick drawing that included many of the design elements and lots of skies. The advantage of commissions is you learn so much about color and design from your customer's choices. Her choice made the ceramic mural magical.
Customer swatches and paint chips, drawing locating where the vent hood will be over the mural, and the sky color used with the other glazes
The beginning of the design drawn in pencils on the bisque (clay once fired and has no chemically bonded water left in the clay) tiles.
With the drawing finished, we had our third meeting where we went over all the elements of the design, making sure it was as desired. There's no erasing in ceramics once glazing starts, there's only doing it over, which is time-consuming and expensive.
An issue that came up while I was outlining the drawing was that it looked like the nymphs were floating in the air. I wanted them grounded with a horizon line that meant adding another color. After a chat, we agreed on cobalt blue and another color check. After that, it was smooth sailing to the finished mural.
After adding a horizon line for the nymphs, I realized I didn't want blue as the background color to the bottom of the mural. I fudged in another a second horizon line, took a break from the glazing, and tested a few new green glazes for the bottom of the piece.