Tutorial

I made my first tutorial for a clay sculpture, I thought you would be interested in seeing. I wrote it and my friend edited it and put it on her site.

It's to make this little guy here.

You can make Skillet, a cute creature I made up. The tutorial is $10 and can be bought through the site here. I will be making more if they are popular. I hope to make creatures holding things and show how to make fur and blend clay. I'm also thinking of doing a bigger project later in the year and doing an online class for polymer clay sculpture.

~Lara

More commissions

Here are two recent commissions I did. Both are creatures I have never made before and I think both turned out well, especially the second one.

The first is this

He's a professor and belongs to a friend of mine. This was the first time I'd made a human and to be honest, although I was happy with him, his skin darkened too much in the oven while I baked him. One of his hands was way too dark. I was pretty happy with his face and hair though. The character wears a lot of hair gel so I glazed his hair to make it look wet and keep it authentic.

He holds a death ray gun in his hand, which was probably the hardest thing to make. I used wire supports in his legs and the arm holding the gun but stupidly didn't make the wire go through the hand so of course when I put the gun in it, it threatened to break at the wrist and I had to bake him on his side.

I have problems thinking out ideas. Of course it's logical that the wire had to go right down the hand but I never thought of that. How I think bugs me a lot. I try to be logical but it comes out wrong. Anyway, I'm happy with this and I'm glad it didn't turn into a complete failure for a first try at a human.

Human heads are really hard to make though; I'm used to making muzzles and beaks on the front of the head and to make one that has no muzzle was strange for me. I like him though!

Here is the other commission, a ram. I've never made a ram before either but he was fun and fairly simple to make. His horns were the hardest part because I was afraid they would droop while he was baking and they weren't supported with wire since I didn't think they would need it. However I put in card supports to keep them in place in the oven and it worked fine.

I like how I did his legs and hooves, they worked really great for a first try so that's something else I know I can do now.

I glazed his horns to make them look nicer and I think the hardest part with him was the different coloured markings. To make those, I make really thin bits of clay and try to blend them onto the body. I think the blending worked best on the legs. Blending is easiest with softer clay so you can rub it with your fingers and it will just smooth on to the rest of the clay.

I used reference drawings for both of these characters.

If you would like a commission, check out my site here!

~Lara

Sculptures

I thought you guys might like to see one of my commissions. It's a sculpture of a collie my friend commissioned for her husband.

Her husband has a collie character. I was told the pose could be anything but that he was an active collie so I chose this playful pose for him. He cost $45 and if you would like a similar one of any animal, please let me know by leaving a comment! I am always open for them.

~Lara

Ancient Egyptian Artifacts

Jackie's hand made clay pendant was announced a winner in the Egyptian Treasures contest in Beads and Beyond magazine in October 2008! The inspiration was the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 in London. Each polymer clay piece was made separately and applied, no molds were used. The central winged scarab is a vintage brass componant, as are the two ankhs, the cabochons are vintage Swarovski crystal. It also includes turquoise and glass beads. It hangs from a vintage brass chain with lotus flower ornaments. This ornate and intricate pendant was inspired by a piece from the tomb called Tutankhamun's pendant.Jackie is now working on an Egyptian collection.

Please click here to see the rest of the collection so far.

~Lara

Dragon sculpture

Hey everyone!

First let me thank you who have left nice comments on here. I'm sorry I can't reply to them individually, Blogger doesn't seem to have a feature that allows you to reply which I think is pretty silly. I think I might write to them and suggest that they make a feature where you can reply. The other weblogs I'm on have a reply thing, so why not here?

Anyway, today I would like to show you a dragon sculpture I made a couple of days ago.

Click on it to see the full size version. I am working on my sculptures slowly but surely. To do this I have been making a wide variety of characters, both those that belong to my friends and also my own. I wanted to make a dragon sculpture so this is not a character I have but just a random dragon. Afterwards, it occured to me that I could have made one of my own dragon characters so next time I make one, it will be one of those.

This one is called Augustus P. Drake. I don't know what the P stands for and the name is just one I made up. He's the biggest sculpture I've made so far and one of the most detailed. I didn't use armatures although I should have really because I had to prop bits of him up while he baked. I need to use armatures in wings so they don't flop around as much. He is holding a crystal and I am happy with how his paws came out since usually I make paws too big and clunky and they just look fat and silly.

I love how I did his head and for once I can say that I am happy with the sculpture as a whole. Usually there are various parts I think I could have done better or that didn't come out very well. The only small niggle I have is that one of his wings should have been higher and it was when I put him in the oven to bake, it must have slipped down so that was disappointing. Once again, I really need armatures.

As I said before, I have another dragon in mind and I want to make another of the characters from my book too. I have already made one which came out nicely (except for the front legs) and is in my deviantART gallery but if I do another, sadly I won't be able to show it since my book characters are pretty unique. It will be a test to see if I can make a reptilian character standing on all fours with a wire armature.

I hope you like Augustus anyway, I've come a long way since I first started with polymer clay.

~Lara

Pet Portraits

Hi guys,
it's Lara here. I thought I'd make a post and tell you about some of the artwork I'm doing. I have a variety of talents artwise. I can make things in clay, draw, paint (although I prefer to paint on things like t-shirts and figures as opposed to just canvas or paper), I do some digital art, I can needlefelt and mostly I work in traditional media.

I thought I would tell you about my pet portraits course in this post. I started the course last year with London Art College, for a diploma in pet portraits and it finishes next month. I've come pretty far since then and although I still struggle sometimes, I am getting the hang of it for the most part.
A few of my images can be seen on my Storm Artists gallery, those are the ones I'm most proud of. My latest piece that I sent off to be marked by my tutor (the course is one you do from home) is this, a 5 picture montage of my cat, Borris.
I think you can click on it for a bigger one although I did resize it. The full sized version is in my gallery.
I am proud of this, I like the top two images and the middle coloured one. The bottom two images aren't as good. I captured his personality in the coloured one very well even though the head's symmetry is a little off. I am very critical of my work as you can tell lol!
I worked from photos for this. I had prepared quite a while ago for this particular piece of coursework, it involved taking a lot of photos of the animal and choosing five favourites. I always take lot of photos of my cat and make videos of him too. A few of the photos have been just by chance and I've caught him in lots of cute poses.
This is one of the pieces I sent in for marking, along with a portrait of a horses' head. You can also see the horses' head in my gallery.
I hope to be good enough to sell these since I love drawing animals and I always have ever since I was a small child. I have three more pieces of coursework to do before the course ends and I'm waiting to see what my tutor thinks of my cat, Borris and the horse!
Please let me know what you think! I don't get many comments on my pet portraits since I only really post them on Storm Artists and not many people watch me there just yet.

~Lara

Our wedding jewellery

We have decided recently to add a wedding gallery to our web site, The Silver Lodge. It all came about when we received an email in March from a young woman who was getting married in May this year. She had been browsing our web site and came across some polymer clay calla lilly focal beads I had made using the colours of real flowers I grow in my garden as these flowers come in beautiful shades, not just the usual white. She asked if I could design a bracelet and earrings for her in cream to match a tiara she had just bought. I sketched a design and made it up using sterling silver and some Swarovski pearls and crystals. It was really pretty and unique.

The young lady was pleased with the photos we emailed her and was thrilled when she received her set. It was a real joy to be able to make this unusual design and know it was for such a special occasion. That was when we decided it would be really nice to add a bridal gallery even though much of our jewellery is occasion jewellery. We have since made another but different bracelet as most of our jewellery is only one of a kind!

Jackie & Lara