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Pregnancy portrait clay sculpture

Pregnancy portrait clay sculpture

Hi again,

Wow, this was sure fun and I wanted to share it with you all.   I had the privilege of sculpting a very voluptuous and pretty pregnant lady, Kristy, someone special to me as well.   Since I was supposed to be finishing up my serious sculpture of a woman resting (as well as my Indian woman in a canoe) then I’m really not supposed to be doing any new projects.  But I just couldn’t resist!   And my nephew and his wife Kristy, really wanted to have a sculpture of her pregnant.  So off I went, thinking this would only be a one day rough sketch pregancy portrait clay sculpture.

Decided to have Kristy holding a blossom, coming up out of rose blossom and her belly is her real blossom- a little girl!  The name of the sculpture is called “Kristy’s Blossom.” ( This copyrighted sculpture maquette may be used later for a more refined one).

Edit: I did go into bronze with this sculpture and will do metal check and patina on her tomorrow at my Berkeley foundry. Finished bronze pics are shown at this blog post. Photo below shows the finished ceramic of Kristy’s Blossom and more ceramic pics are here.

Ceramic pregnancy sculpture "Kristy's Blossom"

Ceramic pregnancy sculpture “Kristy’s Blossom”

The first day I had Kristy come and sit for me in the position you’ll see in the photos.  That might be an okay position for a few minutes but for a pregnant gal to do it for a few hours was difficult.  Kristy had a clicker in her hand so she could watch movies or listen to satellite radio.   She did so well with very little complaining.

I kept reminding Kristy (and myself) that all this hard work is going to pay off with a nice sculpture.  Also, at first the sculpture didn’t look so good so I reminded her that it will look good and that we just have to have faith.  Gradually she started to get excited as she could see it coming around to look like her.   We didn’t finish the first day like I was hoping so I made arrangements for another day to have her return.

After one more session with Kristy I had the basics of her body modeled and a fairly good likeness in her face.  Also, the basics of the fabrics folds were put in place.

The final day was yesterday, I finished her up on my own and worked late.  So after two sessions with Kristy and one day by myself she’s all done.

Next is letting her dry out slowly to prevent cracking.  Then she’ll be fired, again, very slowly so that she doesn’t blow in the kiln.  That would be awful!  Later I’ll put a wash of some neutral subtle color on her so that her sculpted form shows up and not distracting colors.  Sometimes I love color on a sculpture but with her I think it’s best to stay subtle.

Here are the pics of her I took last night all finished (except for few minor details I put on today -her wedding ring, my signature, a bit of detail on her feet and rose edges etc.)   She’s about 15 inches tall by 14 inches wide.  The first photo is Kristy before she started to model for me.  She looks so cute with her striped pink shirt.

Here's Kristy with her cute pregnant belly all ready for her sculpture portrait.

Here’s Kristy with her cute pregnant belly all ready for her sculpture portrait.

This is my favorite photo angle for the portrait sculpture.

This is my favorite photo angle for the portrait sculpture.

Her foot sticking out of the edge of the flower was an after thought.

Her foot sticking out of the edge of the flower was an after thought.

Kristy's baby girl name is written on her back on the sculpture.

Kristy’s baby girl name is written on her back on the sculpture.

Pregnancy photo sculpture closeup

Pregnancy photo sculpture closeup

4 Responses to “Pregnancy portrait clay sculpture”

  1. Mish Madison says:

    Oh, she’s beautiful! You did a wonderful job capturing her likeness and the tenderness of new motherhood! I love her foot sticking out of the petal. Please show us a photo after you apply the wash! (From Mish – a fellow Wet Canvas member)

  2. Tamara Bonet says:

    I will for sure post pics of the finished pregnancy sculpture. Thanks a lot for your comments. I love the foot sticking out too. You’ll have to stop in at the sculpture forum and say hi there sometime. :-)

  3. very nice. i do rough clay no firing and i love large sculptures how big is yours?

  4. Tamara Bonet says:

    After she was fired her height is 15″ so she really isn’t that big. I keep trying to go large but then the sculpts shrink when drying and also during the firing. She has a large presence, though, just because of being nice and round with the big flower (15″ in width as well)and a big round tummy :-) .

    The finished pics of her are in the ceramic section of my website.

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