MJ Russell

Creating All These Pent-Up Feelings Can’t Be Good For Me! took me just over 2 months. I worked on it for 6-12 hours a week. This was one of my first “big” projects that I fell in love with. The process was challenging, which was exactly what I needed at that point in college. I had taken another ceramics class a year earlier that laid the foundations, and the mosaic project allowed me to stretch my imagination and apply my fresh new skills.
Below is a series of pictures showing how the project came to be.

As with most projects, I started with a sketch. This dog, while not a specific breed, takes inspiration from greyhounds
After cutting out an oval-like shape out of wood to support the mosaic and draping it in a massive clay slab, I attempted to free-hand my sketch without success
Instead, I printed out my sketch and pressed the design into the clay with a sharp tool
I cut out each piece of the mosaic and smoothed out the edges. Each one is labeled with a letter or number so I can put everything back where it belongs
I began working on the dog’s body, adding extra clay to make the body and broken rope physically stand out from the background. I added anatomical detail, too, such as the ribs, paws, and head
A detail shot of the head and collar. I’m very pleased with how accurate the dog’s face turned out
Now, the background has its patterns, the dog has its fur texture, and the broken rope and spiked collar has its details
The mosaic after the first fire (AKA: the bisque fire). Notice how many of the pieces shrank and no longer fit nicely
In progress of glazing. Take notice of how the glaze changes from this image to the next as a result of the second fire (AKA: the glaze fire)
The glaze fire is finished and the pieces are affixed to the wooden board with spackling
I spent several hours filling in every channel with gray grout. This process was difficult and messy. It took ages to get the grout out of where it wasn’t supposed to be
The final work! I took this picture in sunlight, rather than the professional photography room. This light shows the differences in the shininess of each glaze (compare the broken rope to the dog’s leg) and how the grout lightened as it dried
Here’s a close-up of the head. I love how the glazes turned out and I’m very proud of the face especially