Tuesday, December 13, 2011

a present for my sister...

Not really... she would absolutely hate getting a snake, even a fake one. I have made small snakes and a few other animals- sheep, cats, fish (and pigs of course). I brought a few animals to the last show and sold everyone of them. Money in your pocket can often be inspiration to make more!

When I was done pugging clay the other day, I attached a die with a smaller hole to the pugger  and extruded some snake bodies.

I started to hollow some of them out but in the end decided to skip this step on the others. I only dug out a few notches for hanging them on a wall. If I let them dry thoroughly they should be okay.

The texture is white slip applied over a mesh onion bag that I impressed into the soft leather hard body and then peeled off. I have a little touch up work to do on the texture.

One snake is too big to bisque fire in the electric kiln. I may wait for a wood firing opportunity and single fire him. The others should fit in our kilns. I think they would look cool raku fired but also the chances of them breaking would be high... I just might have to take the chance.

Next up...

GECKOS!

6 comments:

  1. I think raku firing them would be amazing! I have fired many things that I was told would break and it all came out fine. My breakage usually happens when I'm holding the thing and for some reason let go!

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  2. Gary's been telling me for years to make a coiled up rattlesnake but so far I have resisted.

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  3. Tracey - I have had the same experience with raku... and the things that should hold up to the process CRACK! you never know unless you try... and it clay and i can make more ;-)

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  4. Linda, I had a snake that i was going to coil but i forgot about it after stretching it out and creating the head... he sat out to long and ended up in the scrap bucket.

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  5. I'm with your sister, not so fond of snakes. We had an unusual number of garter snakes this summer. They never failed to startle me. Yours look very benign and elegant. Try raku; I think they would be super!

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