The Inspiration, Process, and Results of my Abstract Ceramics

The Inspiration, Process, and Results of my Abstract Ceramics

Until 2016 I was a ceramicist. Nowadays I still consider myself an artist but I no longer have a kiln and work in other materials and other forms of art.

My ceramics was focused mainly on sculptural and abstract forms.

On previous occasions, I wrote about my photography. And made several How-To-articles about ceramics, but here I want to introduce you to my abstract ceramics*.

* Abstract means it’s not recognizable as a real or figurative subject

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What is the Purpose of a Ligature in Typography?

What is the Purpose of a Ligature in Typography?

Ligature has a lot of meanings. The word is used in music, medicine, and language. This article is about the meaning of ligature in typography.

If computers had been invented before the printing technique, I wonder if there would have existed ligatures the way they do now. I am so glad that my education in my youth included hand-setting loose lead letters.

This literally gave me a feeling of the typographic origin of corpses, leading and kerning, as well as ligatures.

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How to Improve the Colour Quality of your Printed Pictures

How to Improve the Colour Quality of your Printed Pictures

The quality of the printers is improving fast. Nowadays a lot of colour printers have more than four cartridges, making sure all the tones are printed. 

Yet, the extra cartridges are grey or black, never a colour, which means there are still colours you see on the screen that can’t be printed on paper.

Taking pictures and printing them on your colour printer can be disappointing. Sometimes the result is NOT what you expected. I’ll give you the reasons for that disappointing result and whether you can improve the colour quality of your precious photographs.

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How to Use Layers in Photoshop to Make a Festive Easter Card

How to Use Layers in Photoshop to Make a Festive Easter Card

Using layers in any creative computer program is a marvellous way to enhance our creativity. In this article, I will explain how to use layers in Photoshop, applied to an Easter card.

Once you know how to benefit from working with layers, you can use them for any kind of creative expression. 

Besides using them for masking, I often toggle between layers to turn them ‘on’ and ‘off’ so I can judge differences. Making variations and looking at which one pleases me most, is easy that way.

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Ceramics in Magical Colours. How to Use the Colour of Clay Itself?

Ceramics in Magical Colours. How to Use the Colour of Clay Itself?

Decorating your ceramics can be done in many ways. Your clay object can be glazed or painted with engobes and underglazes. Even screen printing or applying transfers are possibilities.

A pure way of working is using the colour of the clay itself with at most a transparent glaze to emphasize the colours and make the object watertight.

Clay has different colours depending on the substances in the soil of the quarry. The clay you buy in the shops usually has only a few colours: it’s white, red, or ‘black’ (rather dark brown) after firing. Due to the industrialized process, the tones are generally the same every time.

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How to Make Perfect Slabs of Clay for Hand Building Ceramics

How to Make Perfect Slabs of Clay for Hand Building Ceramics

Handbuilt ceramics, composed of clay slabs, ensures a lot of creative freedom. With slabs of clay, you can make vases, pots, and free work of all shapes and sizes.

For a professional ceramist, it is not a question of how to make perfect slabs of clay. He or she uses a slab roller. Such a device is very similar to a printing press and makes perfect slabs that are the same thickness everywhere.

It is impossible for a hobbyist to purchase such a device. It takes up too much space and is too expensive. Hence my tip, which gives just as good results.

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Start Making Ceramics Now with Clay Tools from the Kitchen Drawer

Start Making Ceramics Now with Clay Tools from the Kitchen Drawer

Working with your hands, and especially with clay, is a great way to relax. It is also a way to develop your creativity and is very satisfying. And it does not have to be expensive at all.

Over the years I had collected a lot of professional tools for my clay processing – wire tools, knives, hole cutters, kidneys. Some were bought new, others in a secondhand shop, and some came from my kitchen drawer.

You can start making ceramics right away because most of these utensils you have in your house anyway. Buy some clay and you’re ready to go.

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Combine Linocut with Clay to Create Special Ceramic Reliefs

Combine Linocut with Clay to Create Special Ceramic Reliefs

In this article, I describe how you can combine linocut with clay to make reliefs.

Clay is a rewarding material, both for the professional and the hobbyist. Anyone who is just starting with clay will soon have an excellent result.

Clay can be decorated with all kinds of techniques, ranging from simple to difficult. The beauty is that most techniques can be started in a simple way and gradually become more complicated.

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How to Smoke-Firing Ceramics for a Beautiful Decorative Result

How to Smoke-Firing Ceramics for a Beautiful Decorative Result

I used smoke firing on objects that already had their first round of firing in an electric kiln, called bisque or biscuit clay. This reduced the chance of breakage, and it also ensured that the objects were fired evenly and well.

Admittedly, my neighbours weren’t always quite pleased when I was firing this way. As you might know from a poorly ventilated fireplace, burning stuff that causes a lot of smoke can smell penetrating.

Yet, the results were so great that I risked their dislike. In this article, I explain how to smoke-firing ceramics yourself.

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