Hello Adventurers,

In this post, I’ll be showcasing the art pieces I created during my first semester of university and sharing the inspirations behind them.

In first year, students try the 5 different majors and in my first semester we tried sculpture and ceramics.

Sculpture

The first sculpture task was 'crazy creature'. for this task we had to combine 3 animals into 1 creature then make it into a soft sculpture or plush form with no armature.

The creature I made was a Lyn. a fantasy bird/cat hybrid similar to D&D's tressym. This creature has the head and body of a cat with bird wings, tail and leg texture. They are used to hunt pests and rodents. This specific one is the pet to my retired Dungeons and Dragons character Vesper. He is a Scottish Fold cat cross with a white peacock.

Sculpture

The second sculpture task was a 'wearable sculpture'. for this task we had to create an artwork that could be worn.

I designed a pair of wings inspired by the Atlas moth. My idea was to have then represent both a shield and a mask—something I could metaphorically hide behind.

As someone who can be very emotional easily, the wings represented a social shield, a protective barrier. The moth's eye patterns or eyespots were meant to ward off danger, similar to how moths use their eye spots to scare away predators.

This work is inspired by a specific Dungeons and Dragons character. An Atlas moth fairy fighter who is often underestimated due to her size.

Sculpture

For this brief: "A talisman is an object believed to bring good luck. A rabbit's foot is an example of a talisman.
A magical object worn for protection against ill will, or the supernatural, or to confer the wearer with a boon such as good luck, good health, or power(s)."

To do this I made 5 little talismans jars to represent 5 of my dungeons and dragons' characters.
The idea was to have them suspended from a mirror based on the idea of mirrors as portals where a representation of my characters was coming into this world. Most of the talismans contained a dice and 2-3 small handmade miniature tools that represent the character such as their weapon or musical instrument.

In the end I couldn't attach my talismans to the mirror, so I just set them under it but, I underestimated the hight of the ceiling, so it didn't really work.

Ceramics

Hand-building:

The first part of ceramics was hand-building forms. For this task I just followed the pinch pot techniques, and I decorated most of these with an ocean/underwater theme ranging from just using blue to making different types of corals.

Slab Rolling:

This involved rolling out slabs of paper clay and turning them into little cups and jugs. These pieces were also sea themed with coral, octopus tentacles and bones. The small skeleton cup is one of my favourite pieces from this semester and I wish I had made it bigger.

Ritual Piece:

This meant that we had to create a somewhat sculptural piece representing a ritual or something you do regularly. For this I decided to create a Dungeons and Dragons dice tray as I play it at least once a week. I also wanted to use an old logo I designed for the Dungeons and Dragons game I was running at the time.

This piece did not come out in the colours I was aiming for after the glaze fire so I prefer the pastel WIP is the final.

This was the piece with which I learned how different underglazes can be from their pre-fired colours as well as how many layers underglazes need for full coverage, specifically on purple colours

Combination Piece

For this task you had to take techniques from both 3D studios and combine them into one piece.

In this module I wanted to build on module 2 of both sculpture and ceramics to make a sculpture of the character that inspired the atlas wings while making these wings out of slab-rolled clay.

To do this I modified a Monster High doll by giving her a face up, rerooting her hair, giving her an extra set of arms and building her clothes.

This ceramic piece had the opposite effect from the last one. Where I wanted the last one pastel, I wanted this one bright but as I ran out of time it was 'once fired'.

This first term of art university was a good introduction to both university and 3-dimensional art and allowed me to experiment with many different artistic techniques.