Emilee Williams Art

I've been thinking back on 2013 and what I've done over the past year. Most of what comes to mind is art. I had a great time taking pottery classes with my mom and learning that new (still developing) skill-- I like to call it my new love. But, I didn't paint nearly as much as I would have liked and it's not because I didn't have time. I've been reminded throughout the year, in several ways, that we make time for things that are important to us-- and don't get me wrong, it's not that painting isn't important to me. But through my reflections, I have come to realize that being creative is what is important to me. When I'm doing pottery, my creative need is being met and so I don't feel as strong of a need to paint. I am satisfied with what I create each week in the pottery studio. And when pottery class is not in session, I pick up my paintbrush more. I think my mom said it best when I was complaining about not being able to do pottery for se

I finally received the mulberry paper I ordered to make watercolor collages. This paper is much closer what I had in mind for collages. I did this little orange flower just to test what the paper did when I painted it with color, overlapped it with other colors, and how it dried: 9"x6" The colors are very vibrant when they are wet, but when they dry, they pretty much go back to their original color-- which is good, I suppose. There are no surprises when the glue/water mixture dries. I will admit, however, that it's a little disappointing after seeing how vibrant the colors are when they are wet. Also, there isn't a lot of transparency when the glue/water mixture dries. When different colors are overlapped, not much of the bottom color comes through. All in all, I think mulberry paper will be great for collages.

One thing that I like about the rice paper is that it tears pretty much in a straight line if you want it to. That made it easy to make this linear collage:

Happy Holidays to You and Yours!

I love painting poinsettias. It's a rather simple flower and the layers and shadows make it a lot of fun to paint. I have painted a few red poinsettias, but never any white. I've always been intimidated by the white ones-- until now! It turns out they're not that hard to paint at all. I especially had fun with different tones of white in this one.

A watercolor collage made with contrasting colors: Not sure how I feel about this one.

A small collage of painted rice paper: The colors remind me of a summertime sunset.

I found this watercolor collage I did in high school and I thought it would be really fun to try it again: I thought I used rice paper to create the collage, so I ordered some on Amazon and waited patiently for it to get here. I realized very quickly when I opened the package that rice paper is NOT what I used to create this collage. The paper I originally used had a lot of fiber and texture. The rice paper is very smooth and thin. So I did some research online and discovered that there is a fibrous paper called mulberry paper that is used in Japanese painting. I think that will work much better for this project and it is on its way! In the mean time, I figured I might as well try using the rice paper for a watercolor collage. I painted two sheets. On the first sheet, I started with a layer of just water because I wanted to see if the colors would blend. Turns out that was a bad idea. The paper got fragile very quickly and the top layer started peeling off in little balls. I pai

The purpose of this doodle was to see if I could just fill the page without getting stuck, because that seems to be a problem for me: I did it! Now I just need to decide whether to paint it or not...

This is the last of my pottery for a while... Raku firing does amazing things to the glazes. I hadn't done a raku firing before this class and now I wish I had. I know I'll definitely be doing a lot more raku in the future. The shape of this vase was an absolute accident. I think that the clay got a little too dry when I was shaping it on the wheel and it started to twist. Rather than scrapping the whole thing, I kept it because even though it was an accident, it was different than anything I had ever made before . This little round pot turned out way better than I ever could have imagined. Half of it is a metallic coppery-red and the other half is a marbled white and yellow with flecks of copper.

My new favorite thing to make is lidded pots. They are probably the most complex thing I have learned to make so far and I made three of them during my most recent pottery class. This one was supposed to be red. I even put a note in it for the instructor so he would know to put it in the right place in the kiln. Unfortunately that didn't happen... The knobs were thrown on the lid itself. So, after the lid was formed, I put a round piece of  clay on the top of the lid and formed it on the wheel. It was really daunting at first but a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. The one thing I do need to get better at is fitting the lid to my pot. These were all a little too small.

Had a lot of fun watching these colors bleed into each other:

One of my favorite pieces from my most recent pottery class is this bottle: This was one of those pieces where I didn't really have anything in mind when I started and I just kept working the clay until I got a shape I liked. I tried to do others after this, but I couldn't quite get it to work. I guess I got lucky that time. Not only do I really like the shape of this one, I also really like the glaze. I dipped the whole thing in white first and then three layers of Jensen Blue. The result is an awesome mixture of orange, brown, gray, blue and purple.