In My Grand, Library-stalking Adventure Last Weekend, I Picked Up A Half A Dozen Books On Sculpting.

In my grand, library-stalking adventure last weekend, I picked up a half a dozen books on sculpting. Some of them were weighty tomes by old masters on modeling the figure in clay, but one of them was Sculpting Mythical Creatures out of Polymer Clay by Dinko and Boris Tilov. Just look at that cover! I started here because this book is the shortest, honestly. And how can you pass up a book with the subtitle "Make a Gnome, Pixie, Halfling, Fairy, Mermaid, Gorgon, Vampire, Griffin, Sphinx, Unicorn, Centaur, Leviathan, and Dragon!" I mean, if you can read that out loud without laughing, you win. That's hilarious.

So then I made this gnome!

Super Sculpey, ~35 min.

Today was an exercise in good intentions gone awry. I tried to get this one done early in time to catch the light, and in the process of transporting everything across the street I dropped my camera, my tools, the figure itself, and my palette (the latter of which shattered), and after all that I didn't even get the shot I wanted. Oh well.

I was going for "mermaid being blown out of her aquarium/bowl by a strong wind." What, you're saying that doesn't translate?

Super Sculpey, ~60 min.

Another test model from the big book of polymer mythical creatures. The sample image looks completely different, but I like my little guy much better. Sadly, he didn't photograph so well (part of that was waiting too long and missing the best light, part of it is those ridiculous arms), but he's still pretty cute.

Super Sculpey, 18 min.

Class today! I finished forming my vase (the one I posted sketches of last week), and now it's ready to be fired. I also glazed one of the trays I made the first week, but it hasn't gone to the kiln yet so it still looks pretty messy. The weirdest thing about glaze is that it comes out of the bottle a totally different color than it ends up. At the moment, my forest-green-and-brown vessel (I still haven't figured out what to use it for) looks red and gray. Weird! I took a few pictures, but I think I'll just post the before and after shots next week when I see the final result.

Laguna, 2 hour class

Hi, Kidlette, I'd love to see an Egyptian piece. As simple as a pyramid or a complicated as Hatshepsut's temple. You pick! - momlette

Coming right up!

Today's phaser is a request from Ferocious J, who let me borrow about 1200 pages of comics this evening and so is entitled to the sculpture of his choice.

I went back to my old-school clay this week, mostly for color. It made me miss my beloved Sculpey. :(

Marblex, ~35 min.