3D Art: 3D Mosaic Dove Process (October 16)

October 16 Process -

Making this dove‘s body took a good few weeks. First, I made the body and the head separately. For the head, I started off with a ball of clay then I “pulled” a part of the clay to make a beak. For the body, I squished an ovalish piece of clay into a bird’s shape. My goal was that it would look like some sort of bird. It turned out ok. After, I had to cut the body open because it was too thick. I hollowed the body by removing parts of the clay inside. Then, I attached the two halves together by “scoring” and using water. I didn’t do a very good job, which caused the crack after it was fired. When the head and body was ready, I attached the head to the body and smoothed it out. When I was done with that step, constructed some wings and attached it onto the dove. That part was the most difficult, in my opinion. I had to make a few different wings before I settled with one I thought was ok. It was difficult to make the wings even in size and thickness. The real difficulty was attaching the wings. I think I could have attached them at a lower angle, but it was too late. It didn’t turn out very horribly. Attaching the wings required more “scoring” and water. I had to smooth out the edges to have it blend in with the body. After smoothing it out, the bird looked as if it had two huge, strong muscles on its back. Anyways, it was difficult to completely stick the wings on. Under the wings, the clay kept cracking and did not connect well with the body. I had to repair it several times until it was somewhat detailed. As I said before, the angle of the wings was not very good. Originally, I wanted the mother dove to have one of her wings draped over the younger dove’s body. However, the space under the wings was not sufficient enough for me to actually put the smaller dove there. The work was already done, so I’ll have to settle with putting I next to the side or having only half of the small dove under the mother’s wing. The dove went into the kiln after it was bone-dry. That is when it was most fragile. I’m glad it passed the bone-dry stage, meaning that the head/wings were attached well. The doves were fired in the kiln. They turned out okay, I supposed, but there was a crack. Luckily, the crack was a small one. I think I didn’t pay too much attention to the front of the bird when mending the two parts back together. I still need to attach mosaic pieces onto it, which I will be doing soon.

Doves before firing in kiln -