Botanical Sculpture class

Gonna try to make some progress on the fish tonight... I went into the basement yesterday and saw a painting I had started a year and a half ago and never finished. I hadn't seen it in awhile, and I was surprised at how good it looked to me. Maybe worth finishing after all. It just reminded me of how important it is getting stuff done, not just started. But, before I dive back into that, I think I should work on the fish and get that going.

I did get my ceramic piece just about done Friday... I have to post pictures of it. It's a piece I made in my Botanical Sculpture class this summer at Clayworks. (AWESOME, for anyone who hasn't taken classes there) It basically is kind of shell shaped, like a nautilus, and has no distinct bottom on it. I had to make little stilts for it to sit upright on for the bisque firing. I decided I didn't want to risk glazing it and having the glaze run down onto the stilts and have to be broken off and ground down. So instead, I "cold finished" it by painting it black and using copper leaf on it. Then I distressed it with steel wool and glazed it so it has the look of burned metal. I liked the idea of metal, but I also didn't want to lose the organic feel of it by making it too shiny and fabricated looking. This way it looks like it's a natural patination. (I'll post some shots tomorrow from work)

My other small sculpture from that class needs to be hung up somewhere. I love it. It's based on the buds of Echinacea flowers. I really love this one because it's different for me; I don't usually do things with multiple parts like this, but I really love how it turned out. This is not the greatest shot of it, I'll post a better one of it once I get it up on a wall.