Rotten Apple pen holder

A ceramic sculpture of a cartoonish face with an open mouth, green face, red tongue, and pink tentacle-like features on top and sides, placed on a wooden surface in a workshop.
A small, unglazed clay sculpture of an apple with a carved face, featuring an open mouth with jagged teeth, circular eyes, a tiny nose, a small cylindrical stem, and a curved handle, placed on a wooden worktable in a ceramics studio.
A green teapot with a painted cartoon face, large open mouth, and eye brows, sitting on a rotating stand. The teapot has a pink handle and a gray lid, with a pink tongue and a gray spoon on top.
A cartoon illustration of a green apple with a smiling face, a red nose, closed eyes with long eyelashes, and pink and yellow striped arms and tail. It has leaves and a brown stem on top.

January 2025

I made this piece during my first year at Sint Joost. The Sint Joost has a lot of resources for artists like many workshop areas. At the time, all students had to choose a workshop to make a piece in, as to get accustomed to the work place and with the staff. I chose the ceramic workshop and brought an old design of mine to make something out of. That ended up being a pen holder. I was trying to make something that wasn’t too difficult, as I was pretty new to ceramics, but still something that is useful and works with the apple shape. As you can see I carved a bite shape into the back to lay down a pen and three “worm holes” to fit more pens or pencils into, which I thought was a fun touch! I was disappointed with how the glazing turned out however. As you can see in the bottom right photo, the eyeliner and mascara was a lot more clean, but ended up running all over the place. I think it happened because I put the base green glaze all over the body first and painted over it with the black glaze, instead of doing them separate.