Karen Howarth came in a couple of weeks a ago to give a talk on her work and then followed this up with a tutorial today. Both were thoroughly enjoyable and very interesting. Working from a studio in her garden Karen produces mainly wall pieces and tiles but also ceramic jewellery and thrown pots. All of these are vehicles for her exploration of colour and texture inspired by landscapes and seascapes. She is especially interested in the lines and patterns she notices while outdoors. Working in earthenware she applies marks and builds up colour by mono printing slips at the leatherhard stage of making. Here’s some examples of her work:
I am very keen to use layers of slip when decorating my work as I’ve come to really appreciate the effects it can produce. To date I haven’t actually used slip much and my previous experience with it was purely to brush it on and it always looked a bit contrived. The technique of mono printing that Karen uses I found to be revelatory.
Working on a leather hard slab of earthenware clay Karen applied a layer of black/dark brown slip to it using a brush. Once this has dried she then begins to build up blocks of lighter colours by painting slip on to pieces of newsprint paper and then, once this has dried a little, transferring it by rolling or rubbing the back of the upturned paper on the slab.
Sometimes instead of transferring a whole block of colour she’ll make marks on the back of the paper with a pen. This will only transfer the slip where she has scored. It also leaves behind a block of slip with the lines missing. This can then be rolled on to give a mirror image of the previous print. Indents are made and lines scored directly on to the clay and then there’s more rolling and more layers of slip added until she’s happy with it.
Once it’s bisque fired Karen adds a wash of oxides and pours strips of glazes on to the panel. She doesn’t like to use a brush at all, preferring the results she gets from an intermediary application. I know exactly what she means about this but had never really considered it before. Karen also showed us how she uses the decorated slabs to build box forms. We all had a go ourselves after that!
I was very happy with the distressed, layered look I managed to achieve. It was very reminiscent of the many peeling paint photographs I seem to be collecting at the moment and echoed the colour studies I’ve been working on. A quick internet order later and I’m almost ready to have a go at home!
Pinched From The Earth 