Reference Photo & Artist Background

(click pictures for better quality and full visual)
Henri Matisse was a French artist known for his creative and colorful style. After 1941, he began creating paper collages. Some of his most famous pieces are these colorful collages, so I decided to recreate one. This piece is called Nuit de Noël, which means "Christmas Eve." It is a collage, and the paper was painted with gouache. It was made as a reference for a stained-glass craftsman, who then made a window to display in the Rockefeller Center!
References: https://www.henrimatisse.org/
and
https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/6/311

First Pic & Inspiration/Connection

This piece's colors really called to me. Its vibrancy felt like it would be a challenge to replicate, but have a striking outcome. I also really enjoy collage, and wanted to not only replicate a collage but make this piece with collage techniques like Matisse did. For this project, I really wanted it to be like a collage in practice as well as product. I wanted to cut clay and "paste" it on like paper onto a board. For these reasons, this piece piqued my interest to recreate.

Second Pic & Process

This piece is intended to be a wall hanging. In my original plan, I wanted to add a shelf at the bottom.
My steps:
- created a base slab and underglazed its sections
- sgraffitoed aspects on base slab
- underglazed and attached stars and blocks
- sgraffitoed attached blocks
- painted stars with black underglaze; painted hand with yellow
- various touch ups and fixing cracks
- fired
- clear glazed

Third Pic & Iterations

This project went through many iterations, and I made lots of changes that were not due to issues. First, I changed the color on the lower boxes from orange to peach, because I remembered that that orange is very garish when fired with clear glaze. Then, I decided to sgraffito smaller stars/blobs on the orange and green blocks instead of adding them on with clay or painting them on white. My intention was that they would become white-ish when the clay was fired. I also thought it was more texturally interesting. Finally, I painted on the green boxes and bottom "hand" instead of adding them on with clay. I thought it created more contrast with the raised bits that are near them instead of seeming too one-note.

Final Project! & Reflections

This is my final project! I'm endlessly happy with the colors and the fact I was able to fix the cracks. The cracks were a very harrowing part of the process so I'm really happy everything turned out okay in the end. The "hand" turned out a bit blotchy but otherwise I am super proud!! The underglaze job is also patchy in some other areas, which I am truthfully a little upset about but it could be worse. The sgraffito stars came out exactly how I imagined. I am disappointed that adding a bottom shelf didn't work out, I feel that the piece would have been more striking and useful that way. However, I think this will be a great wall hanging.