Exercise - Contemporary ceramics

The brief is to create a range of illustrations for contemporary ceramics, drawing on the visual history and symbolism of pottery.

To start I chose to work with the willow pattern design.

The news is full of the traumas of getting a deal with Europe over Brexit and it struck me that the story could be applied to the willow pattern legend. The palace is the Palace of Westminster, the bridge takes the couple over the river to Wales, Ta-Jin, the couple later flee to Ireland.

I wanted an oblique view of the British isles which put Scotland into the distance because they feel overlooked by the government in Westminster.

Liquid watercolour paint didn't flow well in my dip pen and my paintbrush plants didn't fit in.

Some plant studies in watercolour pencil using Hokusai Manga Whole Earth Catalogue as reference.

and some more ideas, with added cat studies.

The mock ups weren't working as I planned so I drew onto an old plate with a watercolour marker.

Then used a wet brush to move some of the colour around.

It lacks the delicacy of the original willow pattern design. I added a rough border to see if that changed the balance of the design.

I do quite like the overall effect but I don't fell that it is sufficiently respectful of the original willow pattern style. I bought a porcelain marker and redrew the design on another plate.

This plate doesn't have such an obvious border and I was too playful with the fish. I'm struggling to be serious enough with this design. I think that the marker style tools are part of the problem but also ceramics make me want to be playful. The design above lacks contrast so I blobbed paint onto the plate with my marker and used a brush to move it around and get a more subtle gradation of colour.

Ceramics are really difficult to photograph but I'm happier with this. It is still playful but there is a very fine line between cartoon and the sort of Hokusai Manga I was aiming for. Trying to work in this style has increased my respect for Hokusai who manages to be slightly more serious with his images. The Palace of Westminster probably needs to be a bit darker to improve the contrast and I think that the design is let down by the poor quality of draughtsmanship of the plants, I can draw plants much better that this but I like too much detail.

Besides the willow pattern the other ceramic art that really caught my attention was Bernard Leach. I am attracted to the simplicity of his designs. My scribbled cats from the earlier sketchbook page aren't in his league but have some simplicity about them so I wanted to see how they would work on a mug.

The mugs all came from local charity shops. For this one I used a white marker pen

For these I used the blue ceramic pen from the willow pattern exercise but the nib is getting worn out and its delivering splodges of paint.

These drawings were with a rust coloured pen which I bought before I found the mugs. They're a very light grey rather than white so I wish that I'd chosen a more smokey colour. 

I found it much harder to draw the design onto a curved surface and I'm not particularly happy with the results.

  

I made some smokey grey acrylic paint to try out the concept.

I still found it hard to control the design on the curved surface and the shapes were becoming childish rather than simplifications. Somewhere I felt that they had lost the essence of cat. Partly its about lack of practice with the medium, I'm more used to expressing myself with a drawing implement on paper. Its about the flow of the ink/paint/liquid and partly about the friction of the surface that I'm drawing on. Ceramic is very slippy when drawing with a brush. I think that the way forward with this is to make a drawing that I am satisfied with and have it transferred onto the ceramic surface with some sort of printing process.

 I used up the rest of the grey acrylic paint in my sketchbook and drew outlines with an ink pen.

Reflection 

What has worked best? I think that the final willow pattern is the best of that style.

and for the cats probably these

Of which the smokey painted cat on the right is closest to Bernard Leach.

The scribbled cat is something that I keep coming back to, its a theme I've had on a very very slow burner for ages but I still haven't quite got right. Over the duration of my degree so far I've become more and more aware of the impact of contrast on an image and the ceramic work has further reinforced this.

Reflection

My tutor didn't think that my contemporary ceramics were contemporary enough and I can't disagree. She suggested that I look at 

• Yvonne Ellen I didn't initially get the reference to traditional designs then I realised that she started by up cycling used china. At a time when we should be becoming more aware of what we do with our waste its nice to see someone giving old pieces a new lease of life. Whilst I like the designs that span two plates it would be awful if one piece got lost and the animal got decapitated.
• Jimbobart is one of my daughters favourite designers so I should have looked at him when I was doing my research.  Interestingly his willow pattern plates don't have a story but because they are in blue with a decorative border we immediately identify them with the willow pattern tradition. I confess that I have a slight problem with Jimbobart's designs. They are very well drawn so I would usually like the style, I think that I am troubled by the anthropomorphism in his designs (my day job is as a veterinary nurse and anthropomorphism leads to many problems)