Creating a dragon head

 Looks like the last time I posted on this blog was WAAAY back in May 2012. LOL! 

Yeah, I tend to drop off the face of the earth from time to time. Keeping a journal or blog is a time sink and honestly sucks! So maybe I'll continue to update this here blog and maybe I'll just disappear for another nine or so years. 

So yeah, I mostly have not been keeping this blog as most of my time has been spent on bonsai and pottery. I have another blog where I talk about those things, but even that blog had a good chunk of time where I wasn't posting shit. Oh well. 

Creating a dragon head

So hopefully in the future I'll be able to update this post with some pictures. My explanations will make a lot more sense 

I'm going to try to document the process I use for creating a dragon head. I really doubt anyone would be able to use this to actually create a dragon head, but it might help me if I forget what I did. 

Start with a base shape for the head and mouth. It just so happens that the overall shape of a dragon's head and mouth is a cone, so create a cone using the pinch pot method. Keep the walls relatively thick, yet not too too thick. 

Once your cone is relatively symmetrical, use your thumbs to roughly shape out the eye sockets. Try to keep the sockets symmetrical. Work to push up the clay from the eye sockets to build up the brow ridges. At the same time, you'll want to press down on the nasal and frontal area, helping to give some shape to the skull.

Next, I'll use a clay cutting wire to open the mouth on the skull. This will create the lower jaw as well as the muzzle  portion of the skull. It will look stupid, it's totally fine! Use your thumb to flatten out the throat area in your lower jaw. Refine and shape the muzzle and upper jaw area. 

Use wet snakes of clay to build up the following (in the following order):  

Lower jaw. The idea is to give your dragon a more fierce looking jaw line.

Nose and nostrils. This will add height to the muzzle and interest to the face

Lower lip. They don't have to be thick full lips. 

Upper lip. The dragon is baring is teeth and about to strike! Give that upper lip a snarl. 

Throw a couple eyeballs in them eye sockets. I prefer a dragon with big, bulgy eyes, but if you want to make smaller, beady eye, hey you be you!

Use wet snakes of clay to create eye lids. First the lower then the upper. 

Create head flanges/horns. These can be construed as either. I make 3 pair: 

Orbital

Mid face

Lower jaw

Not sure how to describe the process. It just happens with me. 

Create frontal horns. I like to make these twisty. 

Create teeth. I've done this all sorts of ways. Some with tusks. Generally what works best is to create a set of upper and lower fangs like a viper would have. I then add a set up upper and lower secondary fangs. 

Create tongue. Long and skinny works really well. Connect the base of tongue as close to the base of the back of the throat as you can. Get some movement on that tongue. Have it undulate up and down. Carefully use the downturns to attach tongue to base. Be really careful around your teeth. Don't wanna break them at this point!

Now it's time to add details to your dragon head!

That's about all I'm going to say for now. I might do more later. Hopefully I'll add some pictures so this makes sense.

I started doing clay again at Mishy's. I called her last week, asked if I could do some work around the studio for my clay fees. She of course agreed.
Mishy's a true hippie. Does not like to throw things away. She's a strong proponent of the 'why buy it when we can make it' philosophy. She has all sorts of odds and ends gathered around her studio. This of course extends to people - all sorts of odds and ends.
I took a couple of the monkeys with me on Saturday and we attacked a rock pile she wanted moved. We managed to do an hour, maybe two of work before the heat got to be too much. We regained our composure tried one last time, and decided the heat was just unbearable. The funny thing is that it hasn't really gotten hot yet. It was only 98.
Mishy gave me a bag of clay to get started. Was too exhausted to do anything yesterday, except nap. Managed to get in a bit of clay work in today before work. I did a pot and a small mask.
The pot is basically a modified octopus pot. I kept the legs low and splayed out, sort of like a star fish. I also added six petals around the top, with six horns in the center of each petal. Not quite sure what the end result will be.
The small mask is more or less a laughing skull coming out of a plaque, with fangs, an exposed tongue, and devil horns. Just something I did with some of the leftover clay.
Today's projects were more or less a small refresher in shaping the clay. I was just flexing the creative process, making sure everything is still good. Yeah I think I'm good.
I have some ideas on what I want to do, just don't want to go over the same thing over and again.

I just received official notice that the Phoenix Faerie Festival will not be happening this year. The actual news is that it's been postponed until next year, but the effect is still the same. Reasons quoted are to allow event coordinators to regroup and re-energize.
I know there's been some logistics that seem to be playing against this fest. The event tries to take place in a wooded or treed area. Yes these places exist here in Phoenix! It seems we are having difficulties acquiring a good location, and when we do, it just comes down to too many regulations coming in and wrecking a good thing.
Of course it's more complicated than that, but that's my war. Logistics be damned, I want my fest!
So... okay, I now have almost TWO YEARS to plan for the next fest. Somehow I have to keep my creative juices flowing and not think about how much this really sucks eggs. And if I do come up with something creative and butt kicking, I still have to figure out how to keep it intact without breaking it. And in the interim, I'll just have to find another venue to sell my wares, but I don't know where. Maybe this is just too much for me. Perhaps I'll just hang my hat and forget escaping for a bit into fantasy altogether.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. I know myself enough to know that I could give two snots whether I actually sell my shit or not. Of course it's always nice to sell your crap, but sales aren't really what drive me. I'd be doing this even without the Faerie Fest. I could always argue that there's still the Phoenix First Fridays, but that seems to have gone away as well.
So back to my creations. More to the point, my lack of creations! LOL! Seems I've been too busy doing nothing lately to actually do anything. I have a bunch of small projects waiting for my return to the creation table and get them back up and going. Meh, it's winter, though you wouldn't know it by the unusually warm weather. It's the season of rebirth. Out with the old Oak King, in with the Holly King! Actually its currently a time where the old Oak King sleeps, awaiting His rebirth as the Holly King, but I digress... My point is that its the season of rebirth, where all greenery is in deep slumber awaiting the awakening in the spring. Perhaps I'm more in tune with the seasons than I realize and my creative juices are merely sleeping, awaiting their spring revival.
Perhaps. All my beloved little ficus trees are all fast asleep outside, waiting on the spring. Its a bit difficult to get into the spirit of bonsai creativity when everything has retreated into their dreaming states. Try as I can, I cannot bring myself to do anything creative. I have plenty of different clays, but no will to work it.

Did I mention I've been busy?

Most of the things in the studio have been fired. Still waiting a few items to be raku fired, but other than that, I'm done for the season.

I've been turning and burning, taking pictures of items as they come out of the kiln, and putting them on my etsy shop.

I've also been potting up as much stuff as possible. Did I mention things have been growing like weeds? Been busy wiring things up and getting them ready. There's been some really great surprises hidden amongst the vines.

Once I get everything all potted up, I'll be turning my attention over to a few epoxy clay projects I have lined up. They're literally lined up my project table, waiting!

soo.... I've been in the studio.

Busy busy.

The one octopus pot that was hiding in the studio still hasn't been fired. Soon, I imagine. I have multiple octopus pots that I'm going to high fire (cone 10). Still awaiting the dragon high fire. Very anxious to see how they turn out.

As of this writing, I have two fish sculptures and three or four pots on the raku shelf, waiting to dance in the raku kiln. The pots harken back a few years ago, when I was going for pots with ultra-smooth surfaces. I'm doing these based on a request. All raku pieces have my trademark combination of raku and low-fire crystal glazes.

I decided to ignore the broken pieces. For now. So much to do, so little time.

Awaiting their bisque firing are multiple pots: a couple 'turk' pots, a couple round pots, two 'primitive' pots, a 'rocket' pot, a couple free form pots, a couple of fish sculptures, and a couple of goblin heads.

In case anyone cares, I'm back from vacation mode. I went to San Diego for a week with the family, did the whole Sea World and beach thing. For a week I was very active, being out and about from about 10am until 10pm. Just non stop activity. Lots of eating, but lots and lots and being active.

So now I'm back to work. And I'm back to the clay studio. Most importantly, I'm back to creating as much clay as possible. I had with me one octopus clay pot that I recently did, along with a smaller piece. I took it in to the Dragon, and hand built a few more items:

two fish
an octopus pot
Mishy pointed out that I had a few pieces that I had forgotten about, so I also had a few pieces to glaze:
an octopus pot with horns
two dragon heads
a sea urchin pot
a primitive dragon whistle
a couple of sea slugs
a broken fish

I used high fire glaze on the octopus pot. One of the dragon heads was a little broken (tongue was broken). Rather than toss this item, I decided to experiment a little. I dipped this dragon head in high fire Robin Egg glaze. I then used a sponge to remove most of the glaze from the raised edges, highlighting the details of the dragon head. I'm really anxious to see how this will turn out!

The other pieces I will get to eventually. The other dragon head will most likely be raku fired, the sea urchin might go high fire. As for the broken fish, we'll see. Maybe I'll use it to experiment.

I'm on vacation

If anyone is reading my blog, you might have noticed my etsy shop link is blank.
Aaaand if you haven't noticed, I haven't posted much to my blog.
I'm on vacation mode. What can I say, it's hot. Hotter than snot. So I'm taking a vacation. Not a long one, but a long one by my standards. I've also pre-paid my dues for the month of August, so I'll be in the studio as long as I can, working on clay.
So I won't be posting much, if any. Not until September maybe. Even now, this post has taken me 90 minutes to list this much. Very distracted.
But I promise I'll be back with a lot more. Might even post once in a while, but not a lot of substance. Not until I'm BACK!