Day one of ceramics

So I’ve begun my masters in ceramics at The University of Lancashire and our first session consisted of exploring mark & pattern making. We used a variety of different methods to create these marks, including the use of our ceramic tools but also more abstract methods such as throwing clay onto the ground, or on a tree, or at the wall!

It was important to let go and not be precious over our choices and let the process dictate the mark or pattern. My favourite method was using a large sponge, as I could apply pressure onto the sponge layering a texture and clay over the top. This created a visible and firm replica of the texture.

After some experimenting, we were then given a task to create 15 12cm x 12cm tiles exploring 3 themes.

-Man Made/ Mechanical

-Natural / Organic

-Emotion / Feeling

These was great as we could channel a sense of direction through our mark-making and it would open more possibilities to our potentials of patterns when closing in on a theme.

Overall, this was a great task to begin our masters as it set the tone to explore & create with no limitations. Furthermore, we will soon be using these tiles, once fired, to practice our glazing.

First mark-making experiments

First mark-making experiements

All 15 tile

Tile pieces- These ones are ‘mechanical’ inspired