Drawing on Clay, Drawing Not Required

This class will focus on drawing surface design and images on clay in three parts but you don't need, "drawing skills" to do it. We will be starting with wet tiles for the first part of the class where participants will use intuitive and delightfully approachable techniques based on Eileen Murphy's methods for drawing on clay. After transferring found images or our own original drawings onto the surface of wet clay, we will continue by working the images into low relief before adding color and glaze. In the second part of the class we will use the techniques learned in the first part to apply images to 3 dimensional pieces. The third part of the class will be about glaze--layering oxide, underglaze, and glaze to complete pieces. Other surface techniques and hand building skills will be touched on along the way. This class is suitable for beginners and those with experience. 

Megan Adams Irving is a painter, ceramic artist, and administrator at the Smithy Clay Studio. She has a degree in studio art from Bard College where she primarily studied painting. Her pursuit of clay and ceramic art has been largely self-driven with the support of the local clay community including Elizabeth Nields' workshops and the teaching artists at Smithy Clay Studio. Irving has exhibited her work in artist-run pop-up spaces and more traditional venues, including the Martin-Mullen Galleries at SUNY Oneonta, the Samuel S. Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY, the Corcoran College of Art Design, Washington, D.C., and locally, at the Smithy Gallery, The Art Garage, the Community Arts Network of Oneonta and Roxbury Arts Group.