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  • Pottery on the porch – Frontier Christmas

    Didn’t expect to be sign painting this morning:
    but we had a storm last night and the wind and water damaged my sign. Fortunately, no pots were harmed!
    I’ll have pots on my front porch today as part of 56th Annual Frontier Christmas in old Washington KY from 10-4pm.
    Y’ALL!!!!! That was amazing!!!
    I sold EVERY SINGLE NEW STONEWARE CUP before noon. Most of the porcelain found its home too. A sincere thank you to my friends and patrons who make it possible for me to live my dream of being a full time artist.
    Now that I’m out of pottery. I have to push really hard if I’m going to have anything to offer for my next show on December 16th. Between now and then, if you need me for anything , i’ll be in the clay studio making pots!
    Thanks again!

  • Coffee Cup Bear – Colored Pencil

    When I’m not in the studio making pottery, I’m trying to learn to draw with colored pencils. Of course, pottery themes keep finding their way into my work. I don’t have a pot problem! lol

    Hope you all have a great day!

    Drawn with faberCastell Polychromos

    • dark Cadmium Yellow 108
    • earth Green Yellowish 168
    • light Pthalo Green 162
    • burnt Ochre 187
    • india red 192
    • helio Turquoise 155
    • pine Green 267

  • if i was smart–work in progres

    if i was smart, I would spend the next week finishing the pottery that I’ve already started
    instead, last night, i threw new pitchers and cups. Today, they need trimming and handles

    hopeless pot(tery) head!

    Spent the day trimming and adding handles, threw a few more cups too. Some white slip on 3 of the 4 pitchers. Will be ready to carve tomorrow. going to try to have these ready by the 16th!

    Spent the day trimming and adding handles, threw a few more cups too. Some white slip on 3 of the 4 pitchers. Will be ready to carve tomorrow.

  • More Test pots

    After almost 3 years of working in porcelain, I’m exploring a new clay/glaze combination. It’s a dark red stoneware made here in Kentucky. I’m able to combine my love of clay, carving AND PAINTING for this new surface design.

    Bear making pottery cup
    bunny with flowers cup
    peace goats with berries cup
    cardinal cup
    yellow cat cup
    yellow cat cup
    US Route 62 cup

  • November work in progress

    threw some cups on the wheel, and added their handles
    some work in progress: red stoneware. I’m painting the exterior with white slip. will carve line designs that allow the red clay to show through.
    I was able to carve 4 of the 5 cups with bunny horse and bird designs. Now the cups will dry and go into the kiln for a bisque firing. After that
    I bisque fired 3 cups then painted colors with thinned underglaze…layering them like i would watercolors.
    Then dipped the cups in a clear glaze–now firing them to cone 6.
    Should have test final results tomorrow. The colors should be a LOT more vivid. This is a new technique for me, so I’m looking forward to learning how these materials behave.

    stay tuned to see how they look after glaze firing!

  • us 62 cups – work in progress

    Me painting slip on the cups I made yesterday. They’ll be ready to decorate tomorrow.
    some work in progress big 20 oz cups. They have handles slip and line work. Now they dry out and go into the killn. After that is the fun part: color!
    I’m working on an art project about US 62, one of the first highways in the USA: Niagara Falls, NY to El Paso, TX.
    I made some decals for cups, and plan to give the finished cups to different people that I meet along the route during my travels.
    The cups still need to be fired, I’ll also grunge the surface: to make the cup look old and rusty. Stay tuned!

  • Test results are in!!!

    I’ve been trying something new with clay, and going through some trial and error to get the clay/glaze combination to work right.

    I finally have the chemistry working! Here are my latest test results:

    Bird Cup 20oz
    handmade stoneware cup with decorative rabbits flowers and a heart. made by kentucky artist ken swinson
    rabbit cup 21oz
    handmade stoneware cup decorated with two horses, flowers and a heart design
    horse cup 24oz

    they are all food/microwave safe. As always, they are not available online, you will have to visit my studio in person to add one to your collection!

  • Follow me on Mastodon

    i believe in the open web, and miss the good old days of Internet– before a couple of monopolies became the gatekeepers of our ability to communicate with each other.

    Mastodon is an open source decentralized social network having a moment right now. I just joined and am still learning how it works, but it’s in line with my core values, and I feel good putting my energy there.

    If you are using mastodon, you can follow me here:

    @kenSwinson@indieweb.social

  • Empty Bowl- colored pencil on paper

    Your friendly reminder that Empty Bowls in Maysville is this Saturday (i’ll post the flyer with all the info in my comments–or you can find it in my feed). 100% of the proceeds from this pottery driven fundraiser is given to the Mason County Food Bank. Between the holidays and the increased cost of food, they are going need some help keeping their pantry stocked.

    Hope you can make it!

    An unusual (for me) palette today

    Faber Castell Polychromos

    • corel 131
    • burnt ochre 187
    • cold grey iv 233
    • bluish turquoise 149
    • walnut brown 177
    • dark indigo 9201-157

  • Let’s draw/learn together-horse

    My friend Carol is interested in colored pencil and wanted to know if i could teach a class. I’m still learning myself, so let’s learn together! I’ll try and take step by step photos so you can see what I’m doing.

    Step 1:

    I have picked a palette of 6 Faber Castell Polychromos:

    • Dark Cadmium Yellow 108
    • Dark Cadmium Orange 115
    • Permanent Carmine 125
    • Cold Grey IV 233
    • Pine Green 9201-267
    • Walnut brown 177

    I used the cold grey to *lightly* draw my design on a 5×7″ sheet of Stonehenge paper

    Step 2:

    I’m using a color palette that is a little bit out of my comfort zone (red hot colors!!) In the past, i started laying in colors at this point, but I’m using the Walnut Brown 177 to establish my darks and lights a little bit better, before i start to make color choices.

    

I just discovered that colored pencils are ERASABLE!!! So i also cleaned up some of my light sketch marks.

    Now that I’ve decided where everything is going to be, i used a stylus to ‘cut’ into the paper. because cotton is a soft paper, i’ll be able to draw over those marks without color getting into the marks made by the stylus.

    Ok, next step is to start making color decisions!

    Step 3:

    I’m starting to lay colors down and get a feel for how they interact. Red is such a powerful color, I’m trying to see what it does without overpowering the color harmony. My idea was to make an autumn, brown fields feel to the drawing. I wish I had picked a yellow ochre, but I’m going to stick to my choices and hopefully get a nice tan for the horse—by blending.

    I’ll lightly shade one color, and then another color on top…for example the red roof of the house is a combination of red and walnut. The shady side of the house a combination of green and grey. I pressed hard with the cadmium yellow…to see how strong the pigment look—and to bring out the white bird.

    I’m just learning and don’t have a lot of confidence with these materials or color scheme, but will keep laying colors down until there’s at least some base color everywhere on the paper

    Step 4:

    Well, I’m used to painting, where it’s easy to slap a lot of paint all over the canvas and cover everything quickly. 

Colored pencils don’t want to do that…they seem to want me to take my time and develop my colors…blending colors into one another. it turns out that bringing some red and green into the dark parts of my horse give m a much richer dark (basic color theory—i should have known that!)

    Speaking of color theory, now that it’s coming together, i FINALLY have some confidence in my color choices…it’s going to work!

    Instead of thinking of a brand new design, I took a theme that i’ve repeated over and over with pottery decorations, so I can get down to the drawing part. On pots, it was a spring /summer pattern, i didn’t think how funny it would be to have flowers in a fall scene. BUT IF YOU LIVE IN KENTUCKY, you KNOW we experience all 4 seasons—sometimes all 4 in one week! lol.Now i’m going to keep on building colors—might have color on all the paper next time i check in!

    Step 5:

    I have colors everywhere except for the flowers.

    I know it’s popular to do a lot of blending with colored pencils (because they are SO good at it), but I don’t think i’m a blender. I really like being able to see that it is a drawing-with rough pencil marks. I feel like it gives the work some energy-like the chatter in a woodcut, or the impasto in an oil painting.

    The horse needs some work. I think i’m going to use the stylus to dig into the paper a little bit and give a fur texture as i keep building. 

Hopefully as i continue to build the flower area, the fence will pop out a little more.

    OK, going to dive back in!!!

    Step 6:

    Well, that was fun!!!

    I learned a lot, and hopefully some of you did too!

    With each drawing, i’m getting a better idea of what colored pencils will do, and how i can adapt it to my style—what I want to say with my art! Thanks for keeping me company! Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

    step 7

    for better or worse , i decided to add stars, and a suggestion of a mouth to make the horse look like its smiling. Ok, time to leave it alone, lol!