Tuesday, January 17, 2012

a new toy

Last week I decided to order a Buddha Board and it arrived today...

If you aren't familiar with the Buddha Board, it's a ceramic board that you can do Sumi brush work on with water. There is no ink involved and when it dries it disappears. Perfect for practicing! I have often used newspaper or craft paper for practicing but this is so much better and not messy so you can use it anywhere.
I have never been great at brush work on pots, mostly due to that hesitation of "this is a one shot deal to get it right". I am hoping with practice, I can lose that hesitation on my pots and my strokes will have a looser look.
The first time I played with one of these was at a small Zen shop in Frederick, Md and my friends had to drag me out of the shop because it had me hooked. Jeff has a nice "how to" sumi brush work book that I am going to revisit and I found some youtube videos as well. The picture above was my first attempt at bamboo after watching a video.
Now I have to drag myself away from my new toy and finish up some glazing. We have to get the gas kiln loaded and fired this week, someone is waiting a an order for two vessel sinks...
VACATION IS OVER!

9 comments:

  1. Not bad! that's a nice thing to have at night instead of watching the nothingness on TV :)

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  2. looking forward to seeing the effect on the pots!

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  3. I want one. Also, I should come over and see your sinks, as I'm working on a glaze for two sinks for a client.

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  4. Michael - come over and talk to Jeff, he threw the sinks and I am the "assistant" for glazing them since they are quite large... of course the client didn't go with a simple single glaze, but a shino and ash glaze combination.
    I purchased the Buddha Board through Amazon... $28 and free shipping.

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  5. Wow, what a lovely drawing, hope you post the sinks when finished, would love to see them.

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  6. Super cool. The perfect practice board and its a nice drawing too.

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  7. WANT Buddha Board! I have seen and used paper that works like this, but not with the permanence of ceramic. An idea whose time has come. Keep showing our experiments? please?

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  8. Ohh! Fun, Fun, Fun! A new obsession :)

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