Porcelain and Lustre: Handbuilt Ceramics

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at porcelain clay to create contemporary clay artworks and use lustre colours to add brilliant accents to your glazed ceramics? Ebony Russel demonstrates and
teaches handbuilding with white porcelain, mould-making, creating miniature environments in clay, raw glazing, lustre tile testing, firing and finishing
techniques. Bring small objects of personal significance and learn how to make pressed moulds in plaster and latex to replicate and transform them into sculptural forms with beautiful lustre finishes. Lustre colours are applied and fired on glaze to produce unique decorations of metallic tints such as gold and mother-of-pearl. To inspire your practice, Ebony introduces you to contemporary ceramic artists who use objects of meaning in their artwork. Suitable for beginners and those with previous ceramics experience.

*NAS Short Courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students from ages 15 years and over.

Ebony Russell’s recent ceramic works focus
on notions of nostalgia and desire imbued in collected objects that create, store and retrieve a sense of past. Using an experimental construction method to produce porcelain sculptures, Ebony incorporates confessional and autobiographical
elements into her artworks, recreating her lived experience through a feminised craft. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Ceramics) Honours from Monash University, was awarded the Northcote Pottery Graduating Student Award
for Excellence and completed a Graduate Diploma of Education at the University of Melbourne in Visual Arts. After a successful teaching career Ebony returned to her ceramic art practice full time and in 2019 graduated from the National Art School with a Master of Fine Art, receiving the N. E. Petherbridge
Award and Mansfield Ceramics Art Award. Ebony has exhibited widely, with her recent exhibitions including the New Zealand Ceramics Festival (2020), the Australian Ceramics Triennale (2019), the Muswellbrook Art Prize (2019) and the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize (2019). In 2018 Ebony
was awarded first place in the Franz Rising Star Award for Excellence in Porcelain, which resulted in a residency in Jingdezhen, China, in 2019.

Students must supply their own art materials, please refer to the list below.

Essential materials

• An organic vapour mask is required for student safety, these can be bought from Bunnings or any other Hardware stores relatively inexpensively.
• 2x lustre brushes ($2-$5), Ebony will discuss this with you on the first day
• Notebook
• Protective clothing such as an old shirt or apron
• Any handbuilding tools that you may already have. You can purchase a kit at Parkers on campus for approx. $15-$20
• All clay and other materials are provided.
• Covered footwear is essential