I always feel energized after talking with Steven! Lots of suggestions to mull over. I still need more control in my spraying - pots still look sprayed as well. Need more subtly. I still had not ordered the sprayers that Steven recommended from Harbour Freight. He also suggested that I try an airbrush on some of my appliques to get more detail. Will have to buy one - they are not expensive but will need a smaller connector to our air hose. Some of the small fish would stand out more if there was some contrasting colour.
The children with a balloon - in order to guide the viewer to look at the back of the pot I put a balloon showing up on the back rim - Steven suggested that if I had made the back balloon sticking up more than the front one it would have guided the viewer even more. In this pot I had used a wire for the balloon string. I epoxied on silver wire. Steven thought that the kanthal wire would have been better - especially if I could have incorporated it into the pot and fired it part as part of the pot. A close up of the pot shows that shiny silver wire really does not fit with the earthy colours of the pot. Will try again incorporating those suggestions.
The parade pot - I have not made any for quite a while and was wondering if I should continue. Steven thought that it had great possibilities, but somehow the tree and people separately were OK but together did not really mean anything - my other pots all had some sort of message. Will think about this and see what I can come up with. The Parade pots actually do mean something to me - as I remember growing up in Montreal and having to go downtown to see the parade. I used to always envy the people who lived along the parade route and could watch the parade out of their apartment windows. However this is not communicated to the viewer.
The teapot - I was asked to critique it first - I mentioned the handle - no quite fluid where it attaches, the knob - the wire loops do not really go with the more U shaped wire additions on the handle. I also did not really like the way the throwing rings got erased by the spout attachment and perhaps the spout could taper just a tad more. (That flaring spout creeps in again!).
Steven mentioned that I had seen all sorts of valid stuff but not the thing that had struck him right away and that was the belly - it was just too flat and this made the spout attachment look a bit strange (and perhaps the spout could have been a little bit longer). Now that I look at it through his eyes - it really is rather obvious. I guess I was so concerned with all the details - the wires, the spout and the handle that I had not really considered the basic form. Another lesson that need to be hammered into my brain - I really have to consider first of all the basic form - I always get carried away by the decorative details and I love thinking up gimmicks for my pots - so have to remember - form, form, form.
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