Tonight, I spent some time doing some clean up on the Treewoman. I had to smooth some cracks and some little bumps as well as clean off some of the little dried clay pebbles that get left on a sculpture. But, before all this, I had to clean up the bottom a bit.
The Treewoman had been drying in the back for a few weeks now. I took it off the pegboard and took it to the main studio for a little extra bit of drying time. As I put the sculpture down, some of the roots broke off. I knew it was a possibility and I also saw that the counter was not the same level of flatness as the pegboard, so it broke. Not upset about it because 1) I broke it and 2) it was kind of expected.
So, tonight, I went in and cleaned up the bottom where the roots leave off from the main cylinder. I wanted to carve into the cylinder a bit so it didn't look like the base of a cylinder with stuff attached to it. I think I did a pretty decent job of it. I'll take better pictures when she's bisque fired and final fired.
There's a wood fire coming up and I wanted to throw a few kitty sculptures (it's so fun to say: I threw some cats!... not everyone gets that though and I know my fellow kitty bloggers might get upset by that statement ;) ). At any rate, I'm using a clay called Danish White with Sand. It's extremely wet! Even though I've had the 2 bags of clay in my patio for over 2 weeks, the clay is soooo wet and kind of hard to throw above one pound. The body of the cat in the above picture was made from 3lbs of clay and is sooo heavy! It's also a little lopsided because I put the cat together when the body was a little too wet... This whole piece was made in one night. Threw the body, dried it with a heat gun. Put that off to the side. Threw the head, dried it, trimmed it, and shaped the face. Next, I attached the head to the body and then added the ears and tail. It's small but cute.
Here's my Scottish Fold Kitty. The ears were a little too close together when the ears were fully upright and I had mentioned earlier that I wanted to make a Scottish Fold, so... to make myself feel better about the aesthetics, I folded the ears over.
The body of this cat was made with about 4lbs of clay. The first time I threw it, I hated the way the body turned out. So, I re-wedged the clay and threw the body a second time. Usually, I don't like to do this because when you throw, you add water to the clay. So, a second throwing in the same night means you have clay that is structurally weaker because there's so much water... it's way too wet for anything standing up, much better for plates. However, since I dried the body out with the heat gun and then placed it under a heat lamp while I made the head, the clay was finally of a dryness that was good for throwing.
I know I'll be making more cats with Danish White with Sand, but I'll also be sculpting a few more things and may be sticking with smaller amounts of clay to throw.
Last night, I finished sculpting my Happy Tree Woman. I should probably come up with a new name for her.
Here is a close up on her face. I think I need to work harder on making these faces better. I do like this face, but there is always room for improvement.
