Tuesday 24 March 2009

New Project

Tonight I started a new clay project. What's that you say? I should have been at my drawing and painting class? Ah yes, well, about that... a) I've been very tired lately, b) to be honest I'd rather spend my time on clay, and c) Anita has managed to get a lift from someone else for the last couple of weeks. The only downside is that with Anita also working full time during the day I haven't seen her since... well, it was a long time ago anyway! We hope to rectify that at the weekend.

So my new project was inspired partly by this beautiful (but plastic) plant pot...


... and partly by something I saw on someones blog, which I can no longer find. The blogger was walking in the woods and found a face carved out of a tree, or attached to the tree in some way. If it was you or you know who it was then please let me know!

Here are some of the early stages... After wrapping some clay around a cardboard tube and attaching the bottom, I stuck a lump of clay over the join and made some markings as a guide for the face. This will be hollowed out later.


I stuck on some pieces of clay to add to the shape - Scott thought this looked like Julia Roberts!..


... but I thought it looked more like Homer Simpson!


Phew! She's starting to look a little more human!


I think the face is more or less done here. It took me about 2 hours which I thought was a long time, but then when I made my piece of Philippa it took many many more hours than that. Of course, this is a little smaller, and I'm not working to a photograph.



I'm using crank for this piece. I was hoping for a sort of brown woody effect but I'm not sure how it will look fired because I don't think I bought the right one. The clay is rather grainy, which prevents me from getting fine detail, but perhaps if I glaze it grey I could get a rather nice stone effect?

I've had this project in mind since before Swanee, and at the time I thought it would be one of my "major" projects. Hahaha, after Polo it feels like a little "in between" project! Just something to chill out with until the next major piece!


PS. A big thank you to Jafabrit for helping me to understand the miscommunication with my tutor in the last post!

4 comments:

Kathy L said...

Oh wow this is very different from your last pieces. Really neat. Can't wait to see more. Sorry about that long winded comment from your last poost. I obviously don't know what I am talking about...I just had a feeling. Please forgive the long winded post :))))

Undaunted said...

Thank you Kathy :)

Oh, no apology necessary! You can waffle on as much as you like :) I wasn't sure if you realised that this was a different tutor to the one I had before - the previous one was very rigid about all sorts of silly things. So you made a fair point, some tutors like to stick to their own rules.

jafabrit said...

Since I am totally useless at this kind of thing it was really interesting to see the process of building a face with clay. Thanks so much for taking the time to photograph the process and sharing it.

I am glad I was of help :)

Undaunted said...

Your welcome Jafabrit :) I feel the same way about painting. I know I have done a few basic paintings, but I have no idea about building up colour with different colours underneath! I know how much I appreciate it when bloggers share their creative process - for me it makes it seem achievable. So I just hope that maybe someone else who is just starting out on their creative journey (or maybe someone considering trying a new medium) will come across my blog and maybe feel inspired after seeing how achievable it is to create something like this. I suppose it's my way of saying thank you - to pass on what I know in the same way others have passed on their knowledge to me :)