Welcome, Bienvenidos!

Adventures in Ceramic Illustration

Tender Fawn

Hummingbird

Porcelain repurposed plates ready for new life
The Illustrations on porcelain are cookie plates that are food and dishwasher safe because the glazes and paints are fired on.
Cookie Panda was the very first attempt with this medium and I am still getting the feel for it. These are ready for firing and I can't wait to see how they will come out!

The fawn and panda are done with oil based mediums and the tiny hummingbird with a water based medium. Will see how the detail holds in the firing.

Went to a thrift store and picked up more inexpensive porcelain to experiment with. A variety of sizes ranging from the 6" as in the hummingbird to a large stoneware platter with a blue rim.

Staying with pure white for plate colors and black/white illustrations with maybe one additional color.

Endangered wildlife will be most of the focus, but I am already planning a few dog designs. And o.k., fawns and hummingbirds are not endangered, but they are good practice as I get a feel for the medium.

More later as I design for my new loot of repurposed dish ware!

Art Enriches Our Lives

Mural for Wright Elementary School - Finished!
Mural Vinyl Lettering Installation

Mural Vinyl Lettering Application
This charming, welcoming little mural is for the John B. Wright elementary school entry lobby.The school has a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, hence the STEM in the school title.

In collaboration with the principle, Maria Marin, the design features a bit from several areas.
The Monarch butterfly life cycle on the left will reference the school garden in the courtyard that will teach students plant life cycles and butterfly life cycles by planting the milkweed which is the food source for the caterpillars.

Clouds and rain illustrate climatology. Our solar system on the right shows our planets place in our solar system ruled by our sun.

Little R2's cousin is the robotic technology reference and will provide the students with an opportunity to name it - maybe a contest!

Erupting volcano and sedimentary rock layers the robot is standing on remind of the earth's geological history.

A family of little quail reference the natural world and biology of nature.

Seek and find numbers from 1 - 12 are hidden in the mural. Some are obvious, some more hidden and a few require that special and most important ingredient - Imagination!

Where would we be without imagination of inventors who thought - "what if" and invented cars, electricity, computers, even air conditioning.

Before the mural - the original entry.
The vinyl lettering for the professional finish to this mural was generously donated by the Cook Sign Company, who did the school's original outdoor sign many years ago and has been making signs since 1976.
Another invention - digital lettering! Hand lettering is not common and today almost every lettering and sign is fabricated on a computer digitally and applied either by hand or machine.

These letters were carefully rubbed onto the rough surface using fingers on the thin fragile letters. The letters are self adhesive and merely require a super clean surface to stick, much like decals.
I wonder who Imagined this brilliant concept.....

As this mural demonstrates, art is meant to be shared and enriches our lives.

Have you found all 12 numbers?