Update from Tuesdays' Sculpting classes

Last Tuesday I finished the face mask. I worked on it the entire morning mostly "picking" the nose!! Without knowing, I had used a different kind of clay to fill some of the spots on the mask including the nose, the eyes and the lips. That is a big no-no since the different clays dry at different rates and they shrink differently too. If there is any gap or air pocket in the piece it could chip the piece badly and even destroy the kiln when fired. So I picked the nose, and the whole section where I had carved the flower among other places and filled in with rodsbod (that is the name of the clay I am using). Anyway, the mask is done and is at the teacher's place waiting to dry and eventually to be fired. I took a camera last week. Next time I will take the batteries too so I can actually take some pictures.

Here are a couple of pictures which my friend Debbie took this week. I forgot to cover my mermaid with a wet cloth last week so she was very very dry on Tuesday. I learned another lesson- to not leave the sculpture without a wet cloth cover. I could scrape some of the clay and give her a better shape but could not add clay to her (can't apply wet clay to dry sculpture). There is still a lot of work to be done included the hollowing (which is pretty scary for a novice like me).