New Sculpture begun!

My goal for this year is to sculpt at least one piece each month. I'm slightly ahead of the game in that I have finished a swan/bird boat and have a dragon boat in the process of being made. I also have a new figure sculpture in the works.

I apologize but I don't have pictures of it yet, but I do have a story.

Tuesday night is my pottery night. This past Tuesday, I went early because I knew I wanted to start a new sculpture and I wanted it to be fairly big ( 2- 3 feet tall) by the time I was done. In order to get the height I wanted, I would have to stack cylinders on top of one another. So, from 6 - 8:30, that's what I did. I threw 4 cylinders. The first 3 were around 5 -5.5 lbs each. The last one was about 2 lbs. Threw the base, heated it up, put it off to the side. Threw the second cylinder, matched the top width of the first cylinder, heated #2 up, put it off to the side. Put #1 back on the wheel head, scored the top and added slip. Inverted #2, placed it on top of #1, sealed the seam, separated it from the wheel, smoothed the seam and pulled up the thick bottom (now top of the combined cylinder). Repeat steps with lumps of clay 3 and 4.

I had a decent looking cylinder. Pretty nicely gradated and formed so that my sculpture had hips and a waist and the beginnings of a chest.

BUT

Then my foot slightly touched the pedal of my wheel. It depressed really quickly to maximum speed, my cylinder spun and wobbled. I slammed my foot on the pedal to stop it which made the wheel spin faster for a few seconds. My cylinder decided to imitated a helicopter and took off. The bat rose up off of the pins, hit the spill pans and finally came to a rest as my cylinder of clay flopped over.

Sigh... It happens. And when it does, you just start again and don't let it stop you.

I made a new body with the remains of the first. However, by this time, the clay was a bit drier and my arms were much more tired. The second body isn't as tall as the first, but it's got a lot of potential.

Tonight, I went back to the studio and realized that the body isn't as heavy as I thought it was. Thank goodness. The thrown part stopped right under the breastbone, so tonight, I added the rest of the chest and closed it up at the top to indicated the shoulder line.

Pictures next week of the sculpture.

Will try to take pictures of the dragon boat when it is done.

AND I started throwing 200 sake cups for my cousin's wedding. 12 of 200 are thrown. Will be throwing a bunch more this weekend. (Oh, wedding is in May. I've got a little bit of time hehe).