Continuing to model my moon hare. I have to do this in stages and sections throughout the day so some pieces can become leatherhard in order to support the next piece.
The fabric is damp and wrapped around sections to stop them drying out too much!
Today I evened out, tidied up and started to model the features onto, my Moon Hare orb. I first attached the head, I decided not to start with the legs as I didn’t want them to dry out and become fragile too early on. With this piece the legs are not for support at all so this could be done, unlike my Mad Hare who I had little choice but to do the legs first.
When I model my others however I think I will find some way of supporting them so that the legs can be done later in the process so the problems I had with the Mad Hare can be avoided.
After putting the head on I marked out where each of the legs would go and began to model some up, putting some structure guides on as I went.
Today my Mad Hare went into the kiln – it was my most stressful journey to the ceramics workshop ever. All went well thankfully and my Mad Hare made it to the kiln. However in a cruel twist of fate the shelf he was on would not fit in the kiln with him on so we had to transfer him to a new shelf in the kiln, at an angle. Both front legs once again broke free. That’s the risk of ceramics! Luckily I can re-attatch them once the piece is fired and completed
Last Friday I began coiling the second half of the sphere and today completed!
To get the first half to stand up I created a ring out of clay on Thursday, with a layer of plastic between the piece and the ring so the two didn’t become one.I left that over night to harden and with some assistance turned the half sphere over and rested it in the ring.
This half was, as expected, much easier and quicker to do as I had already learnt the abilities and limitations of the clay and was very familiar with the process, so that’s always nice!
I used also Ingrid’s tidying technique throughout the build to save myself time and work at the end. Tomorrow I’ll give it another tidy up and then I can start adding the head and limbs!
Recently I started another new hare, this time bigger again! I was also advised to use crank clay as it has a higher amount of grog (grit). This clay is a lot easier to use to what I am doing as due to the grog it is a lot more stable and quicker to be able to support itself. This piece will be my ‘Luna Hare’ so I will first need to construct a sphere and will then build the head and limbs on top of that. I began by coiling the first half. First I actually tried to coil it upward, like a bowl, but soon realised that was a ridiculous way to do things so instead built it upside down. This process took a couple of days as after 2 or three layers the piece must be left to dry a little as if you try and do too much at once the clay will not be strong enough so will therefore collapse under its own weight. However I finally completed it!
Ingrid then showed me how to use a serrated metal kidney and surform in order to achieve a pretty much perfect finish (luckily I don’t need to create the perfect sphere as eventually this will be a hare with muscles, flesh and features). Unfortunatly I forgot to tae a photo of its beautiful round-ness before I flipped it, but you’ll see the same look when I’ve completed the 2nd half!
Once the ears were leather hard I was able to hold them up to the head in order to make the shape of the end of the ear complimentary to the head so that the join is as unnoticeable as possible once completed and joined. However upon doing so I realised that they looked far too straight and un realistic and also not like my maquette. Therefore I manipulated then into a more curved and pleasing shape. I then cleaned them up
I finally got to do my favorite part of the build, the detail! I enjoy adding the detail to a piece as that’s where I feel the emotion starts to thrive, with eyes in you can really start to engage with the figure as if it were its own character. Tragically at one point during the making process the legs dried out to much and found themselves detatched from the body, Luckily I could re-attatch them by dampening each end of the break and using slip as a glue – so far, so good!
Also we have ears! I achieved this by simply rolling over a large slab of clay. Due to the scale of the piece and the thin connection that links a hare with its ears I have decided to fire the ears and body separately then attached them using a metal rod once glazed.
I have chosen to over scale the ears as I don’t want my piece to portray the image of a realistic hare. As I am trying to show a stereotype I want the figure to look more over the top and unrealistic, without looking too cartoony. Therefore I want to maintain a sense of realism but present also dream like proportions. Think John Tenniel’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ illustrations with the oversized heads. All of the details are there, however the figures are ‘off’.
For the surface of my pieces I wanted to achieve a luminescent moon like look on my luna hares and a dark look to my mad hare. I was toying with the idea of using lustres, however do to the scale and number of pieces this would create a high cost. Therefore I instead decided to experiment with reduction glazes. I first found this matt black glaze that I believe would be perfect for my mad hare and it really looked like what I would imagine demon skin could look like. This would therefore help portray the idea of the hare as an ill-omen and its links to the negative Christian view of witchcraft.
I then found these glazes in Uni and decided to first try number 15, recipes 7/6
Samantha Emily Alland 