The clay workshop with Lisa Naples was very inspiring.
I choose a rabbit as my piece for the week. I also learned as much from watching others as I did from working on my own piece.
I hadn’t realized how tall and big it was reasonable to build with coils, I always tried, and struggled, with slabs. I hadn’t done any coil building or pinch pots since college in the 70s, until the past two week. So now I’m excited to try big totem bases with coils.
Here is the rabbit piece as it went together.
Using a dry brush method for glazing, I glazed the rabbit before adding the ears, otherwise it would be difficult to get her covered.
One day we went to a flea market to find found objects to use with our sculptures, I found some things for future pieces and found this neat compass.
The rabbit is ready to be fired! I hope it will turn out but won’t know for a few weeks. We worked on the sculpture all week and kept adding wet clay to leather hard, then covering the whole thing up tightly to distribute the moisture. Lisa said she has worked on a piece then let it sit for months before finishing by keeping it wrapped tightly.
At the beginning of the workshop we did do 2 minute sculptures, like gesture drawings. The inspiration for my big rabbit came from this one on the left!
With her method of glazing using colored slips, you work on leather hard clay.
I can’t wait to see the finished piece.