Club night with Mary Lou Foate

What a great night.
 
Mary Lou Foate – creates her works of art by a variety of different methods. 

Mary Lou lovingly creates these unique, whimsical, adorable and very individual pieces of art: miniature sculptures, plaques, brooches, coasters… by using found tools from nature or the kitchen draw. 

The first method she showed us was by drawing an outline in the clay and then pressing areas away this leaves the main focus, normally the face at a more defined level. She marks the back ground using a whole assortment of objects, e.g.  pens and screws .
Mary Lou lets the clay define the work, and never forces the result.
 
Another method is to add base shapes to the outside of a pot / plate  and then press them into the pot.
She can mark these shapes before and after pressing them and loves the way that pressing the object distorts the figure.
This method she uses for her house tiles and her fish plates. She also builds on pinch pots making them into figurines.
 
Her glazing was amazing.  She uses several different methods; She will often put on a base colour (Waikato blue glaze) and then sponges this off  giving wonderful depth to her detailed work. She combines both clear glaze on top and under colour; no particular glaze on her faces and colours mixed with ball clay (for a matt effect).
Recently she has done some work with BRT clay and added Raku white animals, pressing them in.

 A very inspiring and creative evening.