Sun Nov 10
Reindeer
The red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, some would even say it glowed.
In the spirit of the festive season, Rudolph is here to celebrate with us! Although Christmas was more than a month away, it took weeks to make Rudolph from a ball of clay to the finished piece.
I had a really frustrating time sculpting this reindeer. I was using real life reference photos but a real deer has a narrow face whereas this jar was wide and round. The nose also looks more cylindrical rather than coming to a point or a dome. There was no way I could make a proportional nose that looked realistic and cute. The nose looked awkwardly large and wide while the ears looked too fox-like. There came a point where I angrily ripped everything off, slept it off and returned the next day to a clean slate. I smoothed down all the areas where the jar previously had attached pieces and started from scratch again.
This time, I made a small, slightly wider and pointy snout. The ears were attached facing slightly outwards so the inner ears were also visible from the side, more characteristic of a real deer. Despite having wasted hours on sculpting, I grew to love this deer and decided to go all out — even sculpting a pair of majestic antlers.
Painting this was a breeze and of course, the red nose was my favourite part. In the image above, the reindeer jar went through a second bisque firing and then dipped in a bucket of clear glaze. It looked like the jar was coated in a layer of snow! In the next firing, the white powdery layer will melt into clear glaze to give the jar a glossy finish.
Another lesson I learned from this piece was to not apply underglaze to the connection points of the lidded jar. I used Amaco Velvet’s teddy bear brown underglaze here and noticed that this colour tends to stick strongly, causing the lid to get stuck to the jar. I spent a long time tapping the jar with a wooden mallet until it finally separated. Small slivers of clay came off the lid’s flange, getting stuck to the base and vice versa. Looking back, this might’ve been why the beaver met its disastrous fate, it wasn’t entirely the clear glaze’s fault.
Luckily, this was the same day I dropped off another batch of painted jars that used the same colour underglaze all over the lid’s flange and pot. Without hesistating, I sponged off all the underglaze at the connection points to prevent future disasters.
And with that, this reindeer is ready for a night of delivering presents. Merry Christmas everyone!
