The 'Warrior' is a piece I did while Christy Keeney had his demonstration in the class and we were encouraged to proceed with our own work - large heads. At this stage I already had in my mind the topic of my ceramics narrative project which deals with war conflicts and their human consequences. For the head I decided to go with a similar theme. The 'Warrior' is a soldier seen after the battle, worn down and injured, questioning himself about the meaningless of the recent slaughter.
I did not want to make the face of the warrior too recognizable and apparent. I decide to go with shadow and light contrasting areas giving the face an impression of engrossment and sorrow. The fading face expresses the impact of the battle, already turning into a memory.
First I made few sketches and also find few images that would demonstrate similar effect of contrasting light as I had in mi mind.
The ' Warrior' is made of gray stoneware. The following pictures show the steps of making from slab cutting and connecting two slabs together with a slip to give the head a shape. I scratched the surface to give it a rich texture. Then I cut off a shape of the face shadow and attached to the surface. I also made a helmet of few shaped slabs. After the piece was dry it went for a bisque firing.
After bisque firing the stoneware turns into beautiful off white colour. I applied underglaze paint and washed off some areas to emphasize the depth of the texture. I applied light, silver blue paint on the helmet. Then the piece went into firing again to harden the paint.
After the final firing I left the piece unglazed to achieve the raw, unpolished look. I treated it with neutral semi gloss sealant to underline the contrast between black and white. And here is the result:
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