So from the sketch book, the images get transferred onto the cardboard prototype of the house
And then from the cardboard prototype onto the unfired porcelain house using my favourite Peter Beard oxide mix and a very fine paint brush and scraping tool. I love crosshatching which can be very effectively achieved in this way.
I love this Fortuny image above the door. It reminds me of the Venus painting below.
& which gets translated again onto the porcelain using the oxide mix
Cardboard prototype on the left and unfired porcelain house on the right
Then some of the other images and textures gets translated in oxide mix onto the house
Of the trees, Joseph Campbell says of the journey of 'Individuation'
“You enter the forest at the
darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is
someone else’s path.You
are not on your own path. If you
follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”
As for the heron... I am constantly reminded, as I am here, that the images we are drawn to using in our art really are speaking to us. I was drawn to using the image of the heron. I shouldn't have been so surprised on finding out that symbolically the 'Heron links two worlds: the waters of life—the Unconscious, and the
air—the realm of the conscious mind. He feeds on fishes, which symbolize
the treasures of the Unconscious mind: spiritual nourishment for the
Seeker. Yet he is also a creature of the Earth, so he is a grounding
influence for people who spend too much time in their minds and who are
called to ‘fish’ in the waters of the unconscious...' (Ted Andrews)
And this is what I am attempting to do with my dreamwork and representing it in my artwork.
I'm pleased with this first stage. A long way to go yet, a number of firings and glazes and so forth but so far so good.
