In Prague: Art Part II

As I mentioned in my last post, things fell into place enough that I was able to travel to Prague this summer - the art and buildings there are so great, I really want to share more with you!

Alfons Mucha was an Art Noveau artist who was born in the Czech Republic (Moravia to be more specific).  Many of you may know him by his posters of Sarah Bernhardt.  (It is here that I will tell you that while at the Mucha Museum, one was not permitted to take photos. However, I cannot control my children any longer as they are both adults and these are their photos!)

He also designed many other things, such as postage stamps, posters, wallpaper, theater sets and cracker tins to name a few.  Mucha designed a stained glass window that can be found in St. Vitus Cathedral (Prague Castle).  Below is my photo of the window.

His biggest project, which took him years to complete, is The Slav Epic. It's a series of 20 very large paintings that celebrates the history of slavic people.  He considered this to be his life's work, and gifted it to Prague, which is housed in the Narodni Gallery in Prague where you can take photos.  Here are the photos I took.  They don't do it justice!

They are quite beautiful in a very somber way, and as you can see from the one photo, very large!  The last photo, Slavs in their Original Homeland, is my favorite.

While we were there, we also saw an Ai Wei Wei exhibit of his Chinese zodiac sculptures.  Ironically, he has an exhibit here in Pittsburgh which I did not see, but did see it in Prague!

You might have guessed that my birth year is the Year of the Snake, which is why I took a separate photo of it!

In the Jewish Section of Prague, called Josefov, one can find many beautiful synagogues.  One in particular is the Spanish Synagogue and oh my is it beautiful!  Here are a few photos I took there.

When we left the synagogue tour area, we came upon a market, and purchased a handmade clay Golem!  We were quite excited!

I hope you enjoyed my photos today - next post, I'll share my side trips to Kutna Hora and Cesky Krumlov, very interesting and beautiful places!  Thanks for reading!

Inspired by Art

I'm really getting in to the swing of things with my ceramics. Do you ever feel as though things are starting to fall in to place? I have many styles and techniques that I love to work in/with. And over the last couple of weeks I've been working on ways to incorporate them together in my work.

My first love in the art world is Art Nouveau. The gentle flowing lines, the movement and suggestion of form, and the rich earthy colours in the designs.

Art Nouveau Inspiration

My absolute favourite is Alphonse Mucha, the Czech painter and decorative artist.

Alphonse Mucha - Donna Orechini

Alphonse Mucha - Job Cigarettes

Alphonse Mucha - Zodiac

When you look closely at his work, it seems deceivingly simple,  a series of heavy lines, with washed pastel colours, but the sum of the parts is an incredible result.

Alphonse Mucha - Posing a model

Mucha regularly used photography as a tool for his work, building grand sets with his models, taking many photographs, and choosing elements from them to create his artworks. After school, I studied photography at college and have hundreds of pictures from which I regularly draw inspiration. 

If you'd like to read more about Mucha's life and work, you must visit the Mucha foundation website,  full of information and even colouring pages of his line drawings.

http://www.muchafoundation.org

Mucha Quote

I also love to draw, and have multiple sketchpads full of work I've produced in pursuit of my own style. 

Sketches

The simple suggestive style really appeals to me and I've been exploring that with some new tile designs.

Carved tile designs

I'm really enjoying working on a larger scale and these designs include my love of carving, nature, photography and Art Nouveau.

Underglazed tile

Inspired by Jenny's post showing how she uses underglazes for her work, I decided to try it out myself for my first test. The carved tile was decorated in multiple layers of underglaze to create solid colours, outlined in black and then fired with a coat of clear glaze. I've found with my underglazes, they work better if you fire them bare, then fire again with the clear. The colours turn out much brighter. 

For a second test, I tried single colours of transparent glaze. These turned out to be my favourites.

Single colour glazed tile

I've always had a thing for the way glaze breaks over texture, and in this version, the carving really stands out. 

Not wanting to abandon beads altogether, I tried out some miniature versions of the tiles as pendants.

Hand carved ceramic pendants

Next I'm going to try these out with multiple colours, although on previous attempts, this hasn't always gone to plan and they looked a bit messy, maybe having a bit more patience might be the key! 

And finally, as I really liked the smaller tile pendants, I tried out one of the design in bronze clay, using the same hand carving techniques I used for the clay versions.

Carved bronze pendant

I'd like to turn this in to some jewellery, I have bronze wire on order, just need to decide how to go about making up the chain! I'm thinking something with rich coloured Czech glass beads and wrapped wire. 

And finally, a quick update on the mugs from my last post. They're still very much a work in progress, I've decided the handle on this one is too big, but I quite like the multi coloured glazing (which took forever!) I think with a bit of tweaking, and maybe an extra coat of glaze for a more solid colour on the purple, they will be pretty cool! 

A WIP

It's still great fun to drink out of something you've created yourself, even if it isn't exactly as you'd like it.

I'm really enjoying the journey I'm taking with my work, it's extremely satisfying to search for what it is that you love and express it through your work. 

I'd love to hear what it is that inspires your work... don't forget to leave a comment!