Zxo

Hey I'm Zxo Zxomon. I mostly draw stuff and make clay stuff.

[zxomon]

I don't think I've overdone the gradient maps just yet.

This one is also getting a paintjob right now. Though you can't really tell from the picture.

[zxomon]

Been taking photos of my clay stuff, in sharp light

, and then playing around with them digitally with gradient maps. Really nice way to see them all in a new light.

[zxomon]

Beak towards beak.

(Playing around with my clay sculptures under colour-shifting string lights)

[zxomon]

A gwumpee tuude.

[zxomon]

Phone camera awful but I like the way the glazes turned out! There are two glazes, one in the details and another just painted on top and that part worked perfectly.

[zxomon]

(The lower photo is before the filt was added underneath, but nothing else was changed)

Like a chess piece!

The dark spots is from an experiment with dyed wax. It's didn't cover the surface evenly but it stuck to details and added some texture. I don't hate it.

(Photos are from earlier this spring but I don't think I posted them back then)

[zxomon]

All of the pendants in this batch were made to be painted on with acrylic paint. That was the plan. But some I kinda want to keep as is, now when they're fired and done and I see what they turned into. These, for example.

Luckily, I made 125 of them and some just wont work unless I paint them, so I can save these for later and see what I feel like at that point.

[zxomon]

Having fun with the simplest of the pendants of the bunch of 125. I think these look a bit like modern art and I've named them "Two Red Squares" and "Chameleon".

[zxomon]

Been working through 2,2kg of dark clay, to make a lot of pendants I can then paint tiny paintings on. If I lay them in a pile and take a photo of them like this they look like they could be a hundred or more. They're not. But they are quite many. I'll have lots to paint on.

These are the only two with any glaze on them. It's the same glaze but on one it has a turquoise colour and on the other it's too thin and just shines a bit. Which also works so that's fine.

Thing is, I can only have glaze on one side because I can't have glaze on the side of the pendant that touches the kiln. But if I'm going to paint on it then I could add glaze on what is actually the back of the pendant. That's something I can play around with more.

[zxomon]

And now all of the 2,2kg of dark clay is shaped and fired and ready to be painted on. They are 125 in total from the same lump of clay. Now to fill them with small paintings!

[zxomon]

Been working through 2,2kg of dark clay, to make a lot of pendants I can then paint tiny paintings on. If I lay them in a pile and take a photo of them like this they look like they could be a hundred or more. They're not. But they are quite many. I'll have lots to paint on.

These are the only two with any glaze on them. It's the same glaze but on one it has a turquoise colour and on the other it's too thin and just shines a bit. Which also works so that's fine.

Thing is, I can only have glaze on one side because I can't have glaze on the side of the pendant that touches the kiln. But if I'm going to paint on it then I could add glaze on what is actually the back of the pendant. That's something I can play around with more.

[zxomon]

Painted a smol guy on a clay pendant and it was fun so I made ten new pendants to paint smol guys on!

[zxomon]

They are now painted. I am out of pendants to paint. I am also out of clay to make pendants out of. I do, however, have lots of other things to paint, so I should survive until I can get more clay for more pendants.

I also really want to sculpt more stuff. I have clay withdrawal. And it hasn't even been that long. But I gotta paint the things I have to make space for more anyways.

[zxomon]

They are now all on leather cords. I try to tie and weave the cord onto/into the pendants to make it more interesting. Sometimes it works really well and sometimes I try for a while and the just give upp and let it be a simple one.

As per usual though, I don't like taking photos of things. It's one of my weaknesses. I just don't like it. The softness of paint disappears. Many colours don't really show up. And phone cameras are extra bad because of the way they actively try to make the photos look better. Works well if all you do is take vacation photos of your friends, but makes it challenging to use when taking photos of... like... anything else. I should just dust off my digital camera. See if I can get better shots from that one. Don't know how it compares in megapixels to modern phone cameras but at least it doesn't care about what is in front of it.

[zxomon]

I got 2,2kg of black clay and I'll see how many pendants that's going to turn into.

Doing different shapes and such to get some variation. Also the skull because I want to paint it for a change. I have a lot of pendants with that exact skull but with engobes and glazes but non with acrylic. Though I think I'll add some glaze in the eyes like glass pearls because I think that's pretty P:

[zxomon]

Painted a smol guy on a clay pendant and it was fun so I made ten new pendants to paint smol guys on!

[zxomon]

They are now painted. I am out of pendants to paint. I am also out of clay to make pendants out of. I do, however, have lots of other things to paint, so I should survive until I can get more clay for more pendants.

I also really want to sculpt more stuff. I have clay withdrawal. And it hasn't even been that long. But I gotta paint the things I have to make space for more anyways.

[zxomon]

They are now all on leather cords. I try to tie and weave the cord onto/into the pendants to make it more interesting. Sometimes it works really well and sometimes I try for a while and the just give upp and let it be a simple one.

As per usual though, I don't like taking photos of things. It's one of my weaknesses. I just don't like it. The softness of paint disappears. Many colours don't really show up. And phone cameras are extra bad because of the way they actively try to make the photos look better. Works well if all you do is take vacation photos of your friends, but makes it challenging to use when taking photos of... like... anything else. I should just dust off my digital camera. See if I can get better shots from that one. Don't know how it compares in megapixels to modern phone cameras but at least it doesn't care about what is in front of it.

[zxomon]

Painted a smol guy on a clay pendant and it was fun so I made ten new pendants to paint smol guys on!

[zxomon]

They are now painted. I am out of pendants to paint. I am also out of clay to make pendants out of. I do, however, have lots of other things to paint, so I should survive until I can get more clay for more pendants.

I also really want to sculpt more stuff. I have clay withdrawal. And it hasn't even been that long. But I gotta paint the things I have to make space for more anyways.

[zxomon]

Painted a smol guy on a clay pendant and it was fun so I made ten new pendants to paint smol guys on!

[zxomon]

A small sculpture, now possibly, maybe, probably finished. My first plan was to make it much lighter and more grey with blue-green tones on top and brown spots along the sides from below, sort of. But a lot of the things I do end up in a brown-beige-grey kind of colour scheme so I'll try to keep my hands away from this very blue thing.

After all, I'll make more faces and add more papier-maché to them. I want to make more like this in different versions, with different expressions and different pointy things sticking out.

The thing is made out of stoneware clay but with a kind of papier-maché built on, easily seen on photo number 1. It attaches very well to the clay and allows me to play with the different materials in different ways. Which is nice. I like it.

The whole thing then painted with acrylics which feels like cheating when there's clay involved but really doesn't have to be. As long as it's not supposed to be food safe it doesn't matter.

I kinda like the wip photo though. One of the future heads I make has to have a light, beige colour scheme.

[zxomon]

Shapes and lighting is tricky. I kinda like the shape of this face-octopus, but only when I hold it up and see it clearly. At a distance it just looks like a lump of clay. So I'm going to paint it and hopefully it'll look like what it is a bit more.

Sculpting those tentacles took longer than it was worth but I still like it. I should not be against doing a bit of useless things. I mean, I played Plants vs Zombies for 6 hours straight recently. Could as well add tedious, time-consuming details to clay. (I was very tired and brain didn't work though so I couldn't really do anything, but still)

[zxomon]

Stoneware clay things waiting in line to be painted. All of them looking more cold/blueish in their colours here than they do right now in natural daylight. Paints and colours and lights sure is a thing to keep in mind and I shouldn't be painting in a dark room, at night, with cold lamp light. I still do though. It's just what it is.

Regardless. Painting these is awesome and now I need to sculpt more things not only because sculpting i wonderful but because I also need more things to paint. I need this in my life now it's just the way it is. No going back.