Ceramic Tile Project

In ceramics class we started a new project. The new project that was introduced to us was quite simple the first time I heard it, but I knew that it would take a lot of technique and skill in order to execute the project. The basic idea of the project is that we had to create a ceramic tile- around one cm thick- and transfer a selected image that we chose and replicate it to the tile. There are endless possibilities to chophouse from, but I finally made up my mind and decided to choose an image from Pablo Picasso's artworks. The piece is called Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. If you want to see other works from Pablo Picasso. This what it looks like:

 Pablo Picasso: He was a Spanish painter, sculptor,  print maker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and  playwright. As you can see he was a very talented individual, doing many occupations and was able to them at a high standard. Pablo Picasso lived in Spain for most of his early life, he then lived in France for the majority of his adulthood. Pablo Picasso is considered to be an old artist—he was born in 1881-1973— since his life was during the late 1880s to early 1970s. Learning more about Pablo would be good to have an insight to art.

Why I Chose this Piece? 

I chose this piece because the artwork seems very abstract to understand the concrete meaning. As a person that really
 like to solve things, I like that the piece is somewhat abstract, this makes me have the desire to be able to understand the meaning. As you see in the work, Pablo Picasso placed many related colors to create unity. He also took many random polygons and shapes to create a defined structure of the human face, neck, and maybe an arm.

Process:

 First, we had to start with wet clay, and place it on the roller to create a flat, smooth tile. After we got our flat clay done, we had to transfers our picture to the tile. There are 2 way to transfer it to the tiles. The first one is just a classic outline of the picture with a sharp edge. Once it is transferred we clean up the sketchy edges. The second way to transfer the image to the tile is using graphite. Basically, we just color in the back of the paper with graphite, and after that we place the paper on top of the tile. Once the paper has been placed, using a pencil, we had to carefully trace the picture down to the tile. The video attach is not exactly what is done in our class but it shows what the basic idea of transferring an image to another surface. When I worked with my tile, I used the graphite method because it seemed easier to do. After the clay is all dried up with the transferred image on it, we had 2 choices, either under glaze the clay with the colors, or just put it in the kiln and wait to glaze the image with the designated colors.
This is the tile before it was put into the kiln:

Since my piece has many shapes and piece making the image, I decided to just put a hold on it and wait until it goes out from the kiln to glaze it. I am really proud pf my ceramic project, I was able to transfer Pablo Picasso's art to the tile. I think the colors that I will paint on the tile will make the project have the same sense of principle, unity, that the original piece had. I think I did a really good job on getting the shapes of the piece to have the same effect of abstractness to the viewers as the original did too. This has been one of the pieces that amazes myself judging that it is my first few months getting into ceramics.

References:

Bliss, Lillie P. Les Demoiselles D'Avignon. Digital image. 
        Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
How to Do Pyrography. Prod. William Mickelboro. Perf. 
        Expert Village. N.p., 3 Oct. 2007. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Pablo Picasso. Digital image. The Art Story. 
        Modern Art Insight, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.