February:
This month I have been focused on finishing the surface decoration on my monkey drums, and working on the construction and techniques I will be utilizing to build my larger drums, starting with three to four West African style djembe silhouettes.
I began by practicing an ancient hand throwing technique I learned from a video by Joyce Michaud, on Ceramic Arts Daily. Quickly realizing how much time and refining it was requiring, I decided to employ slabs, combined with roofing tar paper templates and slump/hump molds, along with wheel thrown parts to build my djembe drums.
Gem, a fellow student, friend, and ceramics master and wisdom provider cleverly suggested the use of, and was kind enough to supply me with, roofing tar paper. I am using it as a template to shape the slabs which will form the bases of my ceramic djembe drums.
Here you can see the beginning of my first two drum bases, and the tar paper templates I am using to achieve the basic form, which will later be refined with the wooden paddles I have made.
I am using thicker slabs slumped carefully inside these bowls, which I later invert and hump the clay over in order to paddle out the shape, and form the bowls of the drums.
These are both in there very rough stages at this point, but you can see that the back bowl is a slightly different colour, and that's because I marbled the clay for that drum. So, when I scrape away the outside surface layer, you will see the design of the mingled red and white clay, which I will accent with simple carving, and a clear glaze.
Possible Glazing Partnership...
Anne-Alise, who is doing a directed study in ceramic glazes kindly offered me any of the glaze samples she's creating and testing, to use on my drums. Luckily, she is testing both white and red clay, so I will be able to determine the results of each unique and beautiful variety and variation before committing to a glaze! Thanks Anne-Alise!
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