Sculpture time

The last few weeks I've been working on the sculpture above. Week 1 was throwing and slightly shaping the body, as well as adding the bark... no, they are not tentacles though they look like it.

Week 2 was adding the head and shoulders. The nose was a bit big, but I was happy with it and the lips. The eyes gave me a lot of trouble. Originally, I was going to just have big ole clay balls as her eyes, spheres instead of button eyes, but last night, I decided to try to add lids. I was pretty happy with it until this morning when I realized I should have created deeper eye sockets so she wouldn't look so bug eyed.

And so we come to week 3 where I've added eye lids, hair and started adding her "arms". Right now, she seems like she's some sort of tentacled claw woman. My vision is to make her a tree woman/dryad. Let's try to make no judgments until she's completely finished.

And as for the phoenix pot, I've decided to underglaze paint it and then electric fire it with clear to cone 6. This way, the colors won't burn out as much and yet the body will be stronger. I decided against raku because of the fragility of the body after it's fired and because in time, the bright shiny colors of raku do change and fade.