Hedgehog with Raspberry

Since hedgehogs have fruit in their diet, I sculpted a raspberry out of little balls of clay that are attached to a base sphere. They had to be attached securely with slip too. When painting the hedgehog after the first firing, I decided to do an ombre from peach to beige on the face to make the hedgehog’s nose and hands look flushed. I also added darker brown tips to the tufts of fur on the head.

I tried out sgraffito on this jar to represent the spikes on the hedgehog instead of individually sculpting each spike. To achieve this effect, I painted underglaze on leather hard greenware and used the corner of a triangular loop tool to carve out randomly scattered teardrop shapes that reveealed the raw clay underneath the paint. Next time, I should apply the underglaze more evenly because the glaze fired piece looks patchy compared to the bisque. And finally, I sculpted two small tufts of fur on top of the head for some extra dimension.

Overall, I’m really happy with the way this turned out. I bought smaller loop tools that will make the sgraffito carving more precise and consistent next time. For the glaze, the clear glaze was too thick when I dipped the piece in so I need to be mindful of the consistency and dilute the dipping glaze with water as needed. That’s why the piece looks more matte and less glossy, with more bubbling in the crevices of the raspberry and arms.