Naomi Hampson

United States

“ Pensive Equlibrium “

"My theme was Pensive Equilibrium, and I wanted to convey how the Earth and the Moon hang in perfect balance with each other.

For as long as there have been humans, we have stood on the Earth and stared into the sky and dreamed about what was out there. We see the moon and come up with stories about what life could be like on the moon. As the science fiction of space travel becomes more and more a real possibility, we look at the Moon with a new pensive eye, wondering if our decedents will someday live there and look down on Earth.

I am a very new enamel artist, and I had two main things I wanted to challenge myself with for this project. I wanted to make a realistic moon without any cloisons, and I wanted to create wispy clouds on the surface of my earth piece. I learned to use graphite and enamel paints, in order to create the pieces I wanted. The graphite worked much better than I expected, and I am very pleased with the moon design. I was able to use graphite paper to help get the dark areas how I wanted, and I followed this by graphite pencil. I used grey painting enamels on the next coat to give some areas a medium grey and some to allow the white to show through.

I also used painting enamels for the white clouds. I still have a lot to learn about what the enamels will look like on top of a colored transparent base. I would have the clouds absolutely perfect, but they would be very subtle or invisible after firing. I was delighted that I could paint something that looked exactly how I wanted, even if it didn't stay after firing, as I have never tried to do realistic painting before in any medium. I am looking forward to experimenting with these techniques and materials more in the future."

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