Steve Worcester
Admin Emeritus
Here are the results of the AAW's Winter 2007 forum contest.
And the winner is.......
"First place- Goblet in the Garden by leppikallio
Second place- Dragon's Breath by chakajo
Third place- Goblet by KurtB
Comments-
Concept and creativity plays a very large part in my critiquing of work.
Craftsmanship is a major factor as well, but creativity is what I like to see. Goblet in the Garden is on the heavy side for a goblet, which you normally think of as being very delicate, but it has so many other things going for it. This person has created the illusion of crumpled cppoer that has tarnished, and has done quite an effective job of it. High marks for being the most creative. Dragon's Breath is very delicate and has a very nicely considered transition from the lower portion (dragon) to the stem.
From a practical standpoint, the base appears to be too small, but the rest of it is wonderful. The third place piece appears to be very well done with some nice "wisps" that curve from one side to the other. One thing that I might suggest for a follow up to this is to not make the wisps the same size, vary it some.
The others had some interesting features. One of the hurdles for using an Escoulen chuck is to come up with a form that is not Escoulen. Not an easy task. The most common of those would be the "golf club" or pad foot. While some of these are very well done- Jim Burrows is a great example, I tend to think of Jean-Francois. Jim wins for best photo! Brian and Machine artist, please pay more attention to the photography. A very simple rule is- if the piece is made of a light wood- go with the biggest contrast- black. If it is a dark wood, go with a white background. Photography is critical. In a lecture that I give on professionalism, I make the point that the image is more important than the work itself! That's the thing that most people will see if, for example, it shows up in a book or, in this case, on the internet.
All in all, job well done, keep up the good work!
Mark"
And the winner is.......
"First place- Goblet in the Garden by leppikallio
Second place- Dragon's Breath by chakajo
Third place- Goblet by KurtB
Comments-
Concept and creativity plays a very large part in my critiquing of work.
Craftsmanship is a major factor as well, but creativity is what I like to see. Goblet in the Garden is on the heavy side for a goblet, which you normally think of as being very delicate, but it has so many other things going for it. This person has created the illusion of crumpled cppoer that has tarnished, and has done quite an effective job of it. High marks for being the most creative. Dragon's Breath is very delicate and has a very nicely considered transition from the lower portion (dragon) to the stem.
From a practical standpoint, the base appears to be too small, but the rest of it is wonderful. The third place piece appears to be very well done with some nice "wisps" that curve from one side to the other. One thing that I might suggest for a follow up to this is to not make the wisps the same size, vary it some.
The others had some interesting features. One of the hurdles for using an Escoulen chuck is to come up with a form that is not Escoulen. Not an easy task. The most common of those would be the "golf club" or pad foot. While some of these are very well done- Jim Burrows is a great example, I tend to think of Jean-Francois. Jim wins for best photo! Brian and Machine artist, please pay more attention to the photography. A very simple rule is- if the piece is made of a light wood- go with the biggest contrast- black. If it is a dark wood, go with a white background. Photography is critical. In a lecture that I give on professionalism, I make the point that the image is more important than the work itself! That's the thing that most people will see if, for example, it shows up in a book or, in this case, on the internet.
All in all, job well done, keep up the good work!
Mark"
