Here we are, nearly a week before Christmas, and I'm working away at creating some more of my "children in clay" or my "other" family as I sometimes say to myself. While I am still building an inventory, at least some of these "kiddies" are finding homes through donations to various worthy causes. My problem is that I put so much work into each one, it is very much like letting a child go, hoping it finds a good home. Today I put faces on another three future mugs and a bowl, not shown in this post, since they are just clay at this stage, but interesting personalities nonetheless.
One of my recent favorites is "Cigar Guy", shown here. He was a bit of an experiment both in under-glazing, glazing, and heavy jowls and to get that heavy jowled look, since I had never attempted to create so much hanging skin over the eyes and cheeks. I wanted also, to make it look like a lit, half-burnt cigar was hanging from his lips. Part of the challenge was getting the cigar ash and ember just right. The interesting thing about glazing, is that you just don't know what it might look like when it comes out of the kiln!
