Work and Tuesday, Update

I did a little more work on the twins yesterday and last night. I led with the close up of the skullie twin's eyes because after I painted them with the turquoise underglaze, I thought: Those are so strange looking, almost startling. (I rarely think that about my own work; Usually I think it's funny.)

The non-skullie twin has pale, pale green eyes, the same color as the sweater (which is a mix of four different shades of green though it's hard to see that in this pic) and the leaves around the yellow roses. (I'll add few dashes of yellow to her eyes later.)

That's a more accurate view of what the piece looks like overall with the colors pretty much set. (Some amount of complexity will be added later with washes of underglaze and oxides as well as glazes, but the base layer is down.) I'm not a color person usually, but I wanted to use color here to try to introduce a narrative about the relationship between the two, a suggestion of who controls what and for what reason. (I don't know if it succeeds, but I like it anyway.)

The piece is still pretty wet--it's been so humid here recently--but I want to dry it slowly under plastic before it goes into a bisque kiln. It'll be a few weeks until it's completely dry. 

This little guy came out of the last kiln. (He is very little. That's the top of a 4-oz jar of underglaze he's sitting on, and, if his legs weren't quite so spread out, he would fit very neatly into the jar with room to spare at the top.)

His size, the little bird on his head, and the party hat are in homage to the work of Janis Mars Wonderlich, from whom I learned a bunch of these techniques. Her sculptures will often feature little birds and characters in party hats.

Working this small is a challenge for me, since it's so damn fiddly. I did this specifically to challenge the part of myself that has no patience for tiny, fiddly things.

The little guy has a companion, who is about twice his size and not nearly so charming.

I built him first so that I could work downward size-wise from one figure to the next, a way to amp up the challenge.

These are mostly painted (as are all my similar work so far) with matte velvet underglazes from Amaco. The red on the lips and shoes are a neon red glaze though (the maker of which I can't recall at the moment--Duncan maybe?), which I bought thinking it was going to be bright and shiny. Instead, it's got a matte finish, even when fired to temperature. I think it has it's uses, but I would have preferred a bit of shine to this. Oh well! Next time.

The Auction, Update

So I checked the auction site very last last night to see that the pottery we took them on Monday was already listed for this Thursday's auction. A few things of my aunt's and my mother's were also listed, but I didn't see everything listed. I'm curious to see how it works out, if things will sell and for how much.

The Day, Update

I've had the laziest day. It's like the clouds clouded up my brain. I got a bit of sleep and then a nap in the afternoon. Crunch and I took our walks and spent a bit of time out in the studio. I sketched out some ideas for my next sculpture and, after I load up the kiln for the next (cone 3) firing, I'll get started building. I'd like to do another two-headed, Siamese twins sculpture, but with one animal head.

Right now I'm watching an episode of Deadliest Catch, one of my TV guilty pleasures. I find this show absolutely fascinating.

We have a pilates class tonight. I'm thinking I might need a cup of coffee to get through it.