My biggest sculpt yet...WIP

 It's time to finish my pieces for the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts in Joseph, Oregon. Hubby says I should enter the chicken pastel I posted in my previous post so now I have two more to add. I am also adding one of my abstracts, but I'm going to do some touch up before I post that one, so now I'm working on a sculpt I've been wanting to do for a long time. I have a friend in Wallowa Valley that snagged some very cool and very large gourds, this one happens to be 26 inches tall. She offered to let me buy a couple as she has plans for the rest. I originally started on a Santa with this one, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it, so here I am, working on an Indian mother and child. I peeled off the face of the santa, which will need a new and very large gourd. :-) I'm using more than one gourd in this sculpt, the arms will be made up of two gourds each.

Here are the forearms. Look Mom, no hands! Actually, I have to wait for the top of the arms to dry before I add the forearms and since I'm not completely sure of the way the hands will go I am waiting until I attach these gourds and let the clay dry before working out the hands. For now I will work on the head and the baby that will be cradled in the mother's arms. The most exciting part of this will be the design I'm planning for the mother's dress. I'm working up a stylized version of Nez Perce designs to finish the piece off with. I only have a couple of weeks left so I'd better get to it! I'm hoping to have more pieces before the show, which is in June because they've asked me to demonstrate my sculpting so I want to have a variety to share. Gourds are so much fun to work with, the possibilities are endless don't you think?

I Have a Plan, Really I do......

I had to laugh when I noticed what I'd done here. Can you see the hole drilled in the dowel? You're probably wondering what sort of creature I'm trying to put together that would need a hole drilled near the bottom of the dowel. As usual I was working on 3 projects at once, the dovetailing technique in overdrive, and while shoes and hands were drying on one piece I decided to glue the base and armature of a future piece together. I thought I was so cool, actually drilling the hole in the dowel before I glued the base on so it wouldn't be so awkward to drill.
Yes, well, I suppose I needed a lesson in not getting ahead of myself. So now I will knock the base off and start again. Thank goodness I hadn't nailed the darn thing in place and really made it difficult to change. Oh sure, I could probably try and drill a hole on the other end, but lining it up would take more time than knocking the base off and re-gluing, after I turn the dowel right side up that is. :-)