The drawing and ceramics

Kerry Jameson

Kerry Jameson is a ceramicist who also draws. Her work touches on certain primitive and earthy delights in both image and material. What I find interesting about her work is that in both her drawings and ceramics she allows the materials used to find a form. She allows ink and other materials to suggest possibilities without having to 'illustrate' what she might do in ceramics, the two practices work in parallel and can stand alone, even though they are closely related. 

Kerry Jameson

I sometimes work in ceramics myself and see what I do as drawing in clay. However Jameson is someone working with a much more profound knowledge of ceramics, unlike myself, a relatively late starter when it comes to using clay. Jameson is also very good at using other materials in conjunction with her ceramic surfaces, carefully judging how surface textures can be combined to create a feeling of something that has escaped from a magical ritual, something primal. 

Kerry Jameson: Ceramics

Drawing and ceramics have been closely connected throughout history and there are wonderful examples of the two in combination to be found from virtually every culture that has ever made ceramic vessels.  

South American

Greek

Minoan

English

Bernard Leach

Bernard Leach looked at both Chinese and Islamic traditions of pottery decoration, as well as studying the older craft traditions of English ceramic decoration. In the image above you can see him referencing all three traditions.

Islamic

Contemporary Japanese

Sometimes taking your drawings into ceramics can make you think more carefully about the relationship between the mark and the surface, it also asks questions about composition, circular or more organic forms demand a different approach to designing within a flat rectangle. You can incise your drawing by scraping and scratching into the clay, use stencil techniques or paint marks directly onto the surface using slip or glazes. 

Picasso ceramics are always worth looking at, look at how much fun he was having with this drawing of a bull on a jug.

Picasso: Bull from behind

Picasso in his ceramics workshop

Picasso drawings for ceramic owls

An artist that was often overlooked because of the high profile that her one time lover Marcel Duchamp had is Beatrice Wood. Her drawings were made to visualise ideas that would eventually become ceramics and need to be seen in conjunction with the pieces made. They are very simple condensed ideas, made in such a way that the ceramic form can easily be interpreted from the drawing. Her ceramics are well worth looking at, in particular if you have narrative ideas and want to use a medium that forces you to clarify your vision. 

Beatrice Wood

Find an introduction to Beatrice Wood's life and work here. 

Drawing with or through clay is another way you can think about these issues. I shall at some point put up a post dedicated to this, but in the meantime this article is a good introduction to how to think about drawing through clay.

See also:

Drawing using clay