Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Painting a (Ceramic) Pig for a Cause

I started painting my pig tonight. Early in October, I wrote about the Parade of Pigs put on by the Benicia Education Foundation and Artcentric. Decided to throw my lot in with the local artisans and students painting up piggy banks for a cause. I know there were many who applied, so I am happy my design one of the 20 selected.


The pig is a ceramic piggy bank that, when finished, will join the rest of them to be distributed to local shops on First Street in downtown Benicia to act as a way to collect donations for the schools in Benicia. That will happen in early January. The pigs will be in their host locations until May, when they return to Artcentric to be auctioned off. Again, the funds go to the cause.


So now I need to find a host store on First Street. One that has a lot more foot traffic than my humble place of work. Or maybe more than one place to split the time?

Tonight I started applying some glaze to the ceramic, but I'm not doing JUST glaze. I have other ideas, involving spray paint, 1-shot (anybody surprised?), leafing, some sculpted wire, and other things. I will be posting progress pics along the way.

Here are some of the beginning shots:

Blank canvas.

Looks so innocent, so unassuming. So ready to become…

DRAGON PIG!!

To the left, a very rough sketch of the idea.  Beginning to rough in the face sketch for future reference, and beginning the glazing process.

Continuing the glazing process. Figured to keep durability in mind, I'm glazing the area surrounding the hole on the top. The rest will be in my preferred spray paints and 1-Shot.








UPDATE: 11/30/11
Due to election coverage and my editor being on paternity leave for 3 weeks, I wasn't able to work on the pig until tonight. The final coats of glaze are applied (the design is still the same) and it is awaiting a firing. Once fired, the blue areas will be nice and shiny. The rest of it will then be subjected to my crazy ideas. Stay tuned!!