Snakey Plates

No. 1 First design-not my favorite.
Too much like a bulls-eye.

Of course I can't stop at just playing around with snake images. So I've been seeing if I can make a snake motif that says 'Snake' and also is graceful as a design.

I doubt anyone would want to eat a meal on a snake plate unless you're a zookeeper, or have a pet snake or study snakes for a living.


These are little thumbnails done with a felt pen within pre-drawn circles. So they are pretty rough, just notes and not intended for a finished piece.

In the process, it occurred to me to think about the encapsulation of the snakes in irregular fields. I like the idea, but overall the snakes are too small for the circle area.

No. 2 Second attempt

No. 3 Better design overall-more snaky.

No. 4 Tail too long.

No. 5 Probably my favorite design
along with No. 3.

So. Here's the question:  Would you want to have a set of snake plates?  Would you display them in your house? Would you ever make them?  Do you know anyone who has made them or has plates like this? 

Playing Around with Design

Even though I don't have a studio right now, I never stop thinking and studying ceramics.

Some time ago, I made small templates of basic forms: Round and square plates. The forms are small enough to dash off a sketch or toy around with a design and variation. I can run off a copy on my printer and expand the idea or upload it into my computer.  

Here's an example:

The first one is a bit busy on the right side. And I would remove the small connecting lines at the bottom of the branch like figures.  

All in all, I think this would make a good wax resist platter. It would be interesting to try this in scraffito too.

 

   Here's a positive and negative of the same drawing.  (The darker snake is the original drawing.)  Although the snake image is about the same, the second image seems more of a 'fat snake'.

The third variation seems more dynamic just by adding another outline.

A lot of people do not like snakes. I'm not crazy about them, but I find their image fascinating. 

Maybe no one would want to eat an hors d'oeurvres off a plate like this.

Not your Grandmother's Blue Willow Ware

These plates are hilarious.*

Don Moyer started his project with the help of Kickstarter, a company that helps entrepreneurs get the funding for projects.

*Plate #1:  Invasion of flying monkeys a la Wizard of Oz


The plates seem to be going very well. Four plate designs have been done. Three on the market and available to buy now. The 4th is waiting for pledge funding to start production.

They're microwave tolerant too.

Paste this into your browser: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159974695/calamityware-dinner-plate-4

The runs are limited to a certain edition amount, so if you are interested, check it out.

More info is here calamityware.com

and on Facebook.

P.S. I have no financial interest in this project and will not profit in any way from the sales. (Except to hope he keeps on designing these beauties

and I can order more as they come out of production.)

Website Recommendation

A plate a day.  http://aplateaday.blogspot.com

is a great blog featuring just plates. All kinds of plates. Like these:

Love this set!

Beautiful and bright. Imagine a table set with these.















Couldn't resist this.  Google Calamityware.com for more details.  I've ordered two.

A set with a different bug on it would be great.

Tangents and Springboards

Springboards and tangents--the most brain tickling thing to do.

This is the sketch or doodle that started a train of thought.

Vertical lines at random placement across the form, then doing the same with horizontal lines, connecting a diagonal line at the intersections--simple as that.

Regimentation is created with the vertical and the horizontal, but the irregularity of placement creates interest.

The introduction of the diagonal creates the feeling of movement. However, if I were to draw diagonals in the opposite direction, the whole thing would become static.

Could be the beginning of a painting, fabric, metalwork. A broach, a wall piece. - think steel plate with gold pins and lacing of silver wire with one solid gold square placed three-fourths of the way up and off-center.

The design holds up. Theme and variation.

One way to know if a design has integrity is to hold it up and look at it from all four directions--vertical, horizontal, rotate it all the way around. If it looks good no matter which way it is turned, it's good.

What followed in the doodle process was not jewelry, but thoughts about a series of square, rounded-edged plates.

(The first has a note to do wax resist dots on the dark ground.)

Sometimes When Things Go Wrong, They Go Right

This is a plate I got a little intense about when I was throwing it on the wheel.

I pushed the rim too far and it did this.

I cut it off from the wheel, laid it aside and went on with whatever it was I was doing.

Later, I looked at it and decided, "What the heck, let it dry."

I bisque fired it, tried a white glaze on it as a test firing and Voila. Not a bad plate.

So, don't be too hasty or too harsh about how your work turns out.

Besides, I don't think I could do this again if I tried.

Domus Domain

The other day it occurred to me that I have total control of what goes into the house. For the first time in I don't know how long, I can LIMIT tha stuff. What a concept. Usually a house is an accumulation of things acquired over many years--things you inherited or bought along life's way.

I've always liked the empty, echo-y barren house mode. It brings back Navy transfer memories of the period when you land in a new place and all your stuff is on the moving truck, winging it's way to you. The-camping-out-in-the-empty-cave concept. I still like it.

As I mentioned before, we only brought a Suburban-load of stuff. Besides two dog kennels and 4 suitcases and various clothes space bags and file boxes, we were able to pack in a few things:

One dismantled Le Corbusie chair.....one of the most comfortable chairs EVER invented. I sat down (reclined-more like) in this chair in a Seattle furniture store and immediately wrote a check. (But I must note, it wasn't anywhere near the designer store price, but much, much cheaper--it's an Italian replica.) It wasn't that hard to shoe-horn this chair into the van, believe it or not. It always was a superfluous piece of furniture in our old house, lounging around in part of the living room looking totally out of place.

Is that what they mean by "Casual Furniture?" Something that just lounges around.........casually?

Other stuff: Two vintage goose-neck lamps, WWII era ones that I somehow wound up with after about ten years of being an antique dealer. A mahogany drop-leaf table was indecorously bungied and turned upside down with it's horse-like legs in the air and winkled into place behind the driver's seat. My Mac was nestled into quilts and wedged into the cavity of said table and padded with more space bags. (I jammed two bags full of fabric for quilts I've been intenting to make.) We also had the PC that owns my husband, and a few books. We topped the load off with two rugs, a roorkhee safari chair (dismantled and in a bundle) and the caned-seat balloon back chair I just repaired.

Two boxes of various office supplies, household tools, utensils, etc. were also stuffed in. I figured it would prove easier to throw this in and too annoying to have to run down to resupply in the new place. So now, at this point, we're filling in the gaps of the things we didn't throw in, but suddenly need........like wide tape for mailing Christmas boxes. (forehead smack)

Really, I'm trying to limit my trips and be thrifty about gas usage, but you just have to invest time and mileage to get your bearings. So I tried to combine the tape trip with continuing on to the post office to mail the packages and on the way, cruise a couple of strip malls to try and remember what stores are where. (I hate shopping, but I hate driving around looking for something even more.)

I did locate a great French bakery with real pate (!) great croissants and baguettes. I think Mr. le Bak-air and I will be seeing a lot of each other. How many croissants can I get on a platter?