Taking photos of shiny surfaces can pose problems in photography.  Sometimes what I’ve done is to take pictures of a sculpture in a light tent.  A light tent is somewhat like a box made of a white bed sheet.  Lighting of the sculpture is then done from outside the tent and soft light fills the tent. 

With the Beautiful Dreamer sculpture I wanted her to have ……..

rich dark shadowing in the crevices of her dress.   A light tent would have softened and lightened the shadows on her. 

Instead of using the tent I did a trick that I figured out and works very well, I applied wax to her skin and let a haze develop without polishing her skin.  This made her skin a soft satin color rather than glossy shiny.  Then I rubbed and polished back ares that I do want shiny, for some glitz, such as her eyelashes and her lips.  Anywhere that I wanted sparkle, I polished.

Shiny bronze is difficult to photograph.

When a strong sidelight was cast onto her, it filled the shadows with deep dark color, and her skin didn’t have flashback from the light because it was a soft waxed hazy satin with little reflective quality.

Closeup of feet and ruffles.

Closeup of hand holding photo.

Closeup of shiny bronze skin that has been muted with wax.

Closeup of diamond pattern and embroidery on chaise lounge.

Edit: Here’s a few more pics, this time these are blurry snapshots, but they show the contrast of using wax versus not. The lighting wasn’t changed on either. (Now of course, the bronze wax waxed at the foundry and polished, but I’m speaking of waxing her again and allowing that to dull. The first photo shows no wax left to dull.)

Before wax - you can see flashback.

After wax with little flashback from lighting.

Thanks for watching and hope this photography tip helps your shiny sculptures to photograph well!

~Tamara

Going to the bronze foundry is always such a thrill (never mind the bay area city traffic that gets my heart rate going!). This time was no different, as I was able to see up close Michael Parkes’ creative realism sculptures. What greeted me is seen below, what looked like a Las Vegas act, all legsssss! 

(Edit- Thought twice about posting pics without permission of  Michael Parkes. He may not like them seen- they are neat photos though!)

 I learned that Parkes “Angel of August” is an edition of 60 and the collectors had the option of picking which number they wanted in the edition. I saw 60/60 which is a pretty cool number I think. Likely the number has a personal sentiment to it so that is a selling point for people to buy and choose their special number.

Parkes’ work is really detailed (hands are simple though). I enjoy the swirly hair. Also, I like how he sculpts the upper lip on the large size. He sure does know how to create beauty. Very enjoyable to see up close. 

These sculpts only have the liver of sulphur applied (darkening agent) with color to be added later. A picture of Michael Parkes’ sculpture with full patina is here.

When I saw “Angel of August” in Southwest art magazine’s December 2011 issue on page 2, I kind of wondered how risque it was. But to my surprise, nothing is shown but just a line from her legs being together. He’s a classy guy (and how many buyers would want the other option- ponder……).

 
There always are areas that will need to be chased out after the metal is poured. Doing a metal check means that you look the piece over and point out to the metal worker the areas that still need attention. A black marker pen works well to circle these areas so nothing is forgotten. (The pen marks go away very quickly when a little sandpaper).

Foundry worker.

On a side note, something that came from this foundry visit was that I made a gallery contact and gave out some postcards and business cards. I’m really hopeful of getting in that fine gallery! Also, another enjoyable contact was meeting up with Larry Noble again. He’s a great sculptor who made a bronze Yoda for George Lucas. One of the perks of going to such a well known foundry as Berkeley’s Artworks foundry, is that you often make career altering contacts. At the least, you get to see new and wonderful artwork!

My sculpture shown with chest area just beginning to be polished to 320 grit.

Now we come to my sculpture and I’ll share with you pics all about her.  First off, her skin and chaise lounge wood areas were supposed to be sanded (except face) to a 320 grit but this wasn’t done when I got there. This put me behind schedule but we got it all done. I would have liked to have had more time to do fine detailing (i.e. more sanding to really have the most beautiful smoothness to the 320 sanded areas).

Thankfully, I did have time to sand her face myself, making sure that her eyebrows or lip lines didn’t get sanded off completely.  I like to do the face if I can to make sure the anatomy of the chin and cheeks isn’t altered (i.e. flattened out). I won’t always be able to do this kind of supervision to my casts.  It’s definitely not making me money by being there for every metal and patina check. 

What’s supposed to happen is eventually you trust your foundry enough, after they’ve worked on a few of the same sculpt, to know the piece well and to know you as an artist, understanding what’s expected and desired.  You turn them loose to make the future castings and have confidence that all will go well. 

I am trying out another foundry that I think I will be able to trust to do my highly detailed work without me doing checks.  It’s being run by an artist himself, someone I really respect and trust.  Hopefully all will work out wonderfully and his foundry will be my main foundry.  Then, I’ll be free from so many trips to the foundry. However, for Beautiful Dreamer, I will always work out my own waxes.  She has so much detail and I want to crisp it all up in the wax and know that no foundry will want to do what I do on her.  But this piece is a special piece to me and I want each collector to have something that is like a gem or a piece of fine jewelry.  Something they will know I put my heart into to have just right for them.

Liver of Sulphur has been applied and patina is being rubbed back with scotchbrite pads.

I asked that the skin could have very, very subtle liver be added. One time, not at this foundry, one of my pieces ended up looking like she had raccoon eyes!

I love this stage when the bronze looks like gold!

She looks like gold to me! Bronze is an alloy made from around 90% copper and 10% tin (sometimes other metals are added too). So what we’re actually seeing here is that beautiful golden copper color. And as we all know, copper tarnishes easily, thus the need for a patina to protect the metal from turning to a weathered copper look (unless that’s what you want). Wax is also essential (or lacquer) to really protect the metal from the elements and oils from handling.

Aiya at Berkeley

Aiya is scrubbing back the liver of sulphur with two different strengths of pads.

One time, the smaller Beautiful Dreamer actually fell off of those granite pieces that she’s being propped up on. Eeeks, I think that patina ended up being redone anyway because it was a white patina and looked blotchy. The patina artist wanted to redo her and the second time around she looked good.

Painting on the burgundy color onto the hot bronze.

Brightness of the dress and ruffles will change once wax is applied to warm bronze.

Wax when applied when the metal is warm, will soak into the metal’s pores and cause the white lavender ruffles to die back quite a bit, having the bronze show through. And for the red color, it will darken to a rich blackish burgundy.

Applying wax to warm bronze.

I love it when the wax is applied! That’s when the colors, including the bronze, glow. But it only looks that way while the wax is melting. Sure does get me excited though! One of the many pretty moments in the process of going to bronze (ugliest stage is the wax stage- so dull- not reflecting light).

Tested how she looks without a granite base.

She looks wonderful without a base. For the small Beautiful Dreamer, I had a base because she needed a little height to see her better. But for this size I like her without a base. I tested her in my bathrooms on pink marble in one bathroom and green granite in the other. Both looked very nice. then on antique furniture and also on newer rich walnut book cases, all looked great. I love how versatile this patina color is with many different colors.

By the way, that large stoneware lady holding a cat, is one of my early works. She just so happens to match my green granite. The glaze in her dress has white puffs in it that look like the green granite with white puffs as well. I love my early works because I can see my progress.

She looks great on wood, granite, and marble.

Probably she looks the best on this antique furniture because it goes with the era that she is from.

Creamy light bronze skin was achieved by misting ferric with an airbrush.

If ferric nitrate is applied with a spray bottle, it can end up leaving larger droplets which show up as spots on the skin. That’s not good at all. I really liked how Aiya applied the ferric with an airbrush. The skin ended up perfect and looks really creamy. Also, she didn’t get the skin too dark. Aiya did a really good job on her!

See the old picture frame in her hand? She's dreaming of someone in the photo....

Indistinct photo.... could be her father she's remembering or perhaps, as my mind sees it, her lover is the guy in the photo.

Next week I’ll bring Beautiful Dreamer into Napa’s Quent Cordair Fine Art where her new home will be. Hope the reception will be very good for her. She is an edition of 50. I think I want to have an artist proof or two made for me as well.

Thanks for listening and seeing how my trip went to the foundry this past week. I hope that all of you who are sculptors have a wonderfully productive 2012. If you are a collector, I’d love to hear from you and which piece you like the best out of my works. Perhaps one can be yours!

~Tamara

This is just a brief note to let you all know that I have a facebook public page with a new link that’s simple to remember and use:  www.facebook.com/Tamara.Bonet.Sculpture  (not case sensitive and period’s don’t matter if they are inserted either). 

If you “like” my Facebook page then….. you’ll get updates that I post on there.  My blog is usually where I like to elaborate and get wordy (oops, this happens far too often) and share lots of photos.  Facebook is what I’ll use for quick updates, maybe a photo or two of a work in progress, making announcements,  and just saying “boo” once in a while. 

I’d welcome any and all of you to like my page. I do have an offer, a little bit further down the facebook page, to send out a postcard to anyone who “shares” the link for my Beautiful Dreamer enlargement, so look for that.  

Soon enough I’ll get a Facebook button to be included on my website where people can easily go to that public page.

Thanks for listening and watching my blog.  I try to keep it as interesting as possible and not post unless I really have something to share which often times means gaps in time between postings.

~Tamara

For any that would like to have a sculpture but need a little support along the way with a payment plan, we are now offering layaway.  We hope that this will enable all to enjoy uplifting art!

Here’s the link to the LayawayPlan. 

 We heard from the foundry today and the first cast came out nearly perfect.  Patina will either be this week or at the latest by next Thursday December 22nd. 

~Tamara

Here’s a 41-pictoral review of the large ”Beautiful Dreamer” sculpture’s mold process.  See wealthmoldtutorial for complete mold process.  I’ve learned a few things since the “Wealth” mold and therefore have added new tips to this tutorial. 

Sometimes people wonder how in the world is a mold made.  Well, pics say a thousand words, much better than writing it out, so here it goes…..

Everything's all clean and ready to begin pouring silicone.

Black plastic bag cut in half works great for covering this Costco purchased work table.

The clay trough at bottom holds the rubber back from running all over.

Remember, those clay bases that the parts are attached to act as funnels when the mold is complete, so make them large enough to hold whatever material you’ll be pouring in your mold.

Blowing the the second coat of rubber into all the detail over entire piece.

Very important: Make sure the first coat of silicone is blown into all the detail areas and covers the entire piece like a complete glove. I had one small spot on the lounge where the silicone wasn’t there and when the air hose pressure blew onto it, the rubber picked up off the piece! Fortunately I pushed it back down and it wasn’t in a critical area so it’s okay but be careful.

I raised her up with a high base so that I could blow rubber underneath the dress.

She still needs several thickened coats of rubber in order to build up to 3/8" or so.

Use a thin coat of runny silicone for the first couple coats on the partition wall.

Cut up the tube of silicone I'd made from pvc pipe into 1 1/4" keys (snaps) or so.

Used the internal cardboard from a roll of paper towels for the chaise leg's mold.

I only molded two of the chaise’s legs because my foundry said they could just pour the mold twice in order to get all four legs.

I made registration holes and x marks under the chaise lounge to show where to drill and tap screw holes for attaching the legs. 

Necessary to make sure the rubber is fully cured before proceeding with second side.

The reason for this is because if you have partially cured rubber and you go and add your dish soap or another parting agent and think all is well, not so. Later, when trying to open the mold, the partially cured rubber will have stuck to the other side in places, even with parting agent. All that good work of making a nice parting wall will be lost and you’ll have to razor blade through it to open the two sides.

After applying the last coat of thickened silicone rubber, press the rubber keys (snaps) into place.

Add a final coat of runny silicone, with no Cabosil thickener in it, over the entire backside but not necessary to go over top of snaps.

The twin towers mold worked wonderfully for the chaise legs.

These pics were very helpful when it came time to figure out where to drill my screw holes into the mother mold. I could review the pics and see where I had the registration circle keys and avoid drilling into them.

That really curved/bent over one proved to be difficult to get the plaster/fiberglass to stick at that angle.

I had to prop up the whole thing so that the bent over mold was at an angle for the fiberglass to not just fall off from gravity.

Ready for me to take off the clay and do the other side.

I use my fair share of snaps but these can be a curse if a foundry doesn't snap them all the way in.

First coat of plaster applied and the sheen is slightly there, ready for second coat with fiberglass.

If you wait until the plaster has no sheen then there is a possibility that coat number two might not stick as well as it should. The second coat of plaster has fiberglass pressed into it. Then the last coat is just a smooth coat of plaster. This helps to keep the fiberglass concealed so that foundry worker hands don’t get a bunch of glass in their hands!

When walls are this wide, I end up making my plaster come out far and have larger walls than needed.

Use whatever you can to prop up and give support to clay walls.

Next time I will make my clay walls only about 3/8" bigger than where I want my plaster walls to extend.

A tight fitting mother mold makes for lots of support so that seam lines won't show on casts.

Need to think about how the mother mold piece will pull off and where the partition wall should be.

Use a variety of tools to clean and smooth clay.

Takes a lot of time to get oil based clay tight and clean against the rubber.

I later removed the wooden support. It was just there because the piece was getting heavy.

Front side is all finished aside from a little sanding on edges.

All the plaster drips on the duck tape board will come off easily because I first brushed petroleum jelly onto the board.

Nice small section is easy to do. Yay.

Final coat of plaster is rough with brush lines in it.

All smoothed out nicely with a cheap but fine soft fine hair brush with water.

Had to put in a lot of rubber under arm and chaise in order for mother mold to pull off well.

This was the one are difficult to take off of the wax cast that was later poured into the mold. I had to cut the mold under the arm area so as to take pressure off of the thickness of rubber and allow it to pull out underneath the arm.

Only one more large section to go. (Retrospect is I could have split this into two sections and would have been easier to remove)

After looking at photos of registration keys, I know where to put my screw holes.

Isn't it pretty? Screw holes have been drilled and she's ready to disassemble.

All the mother mold pieces came off nicely off of the silicone with snaps.

After carefully cutting with a razor the silicone, the original emerges with little damage.

Snap holes can be seen here. They are just right for easy snapping in and out.

Plaster is nice and silky with few gaps or holes.

The reason the plaster is so nice and smooth is a direct result of putting on a first coat of plaster without any fiberglass pressed into it.

Here's the sculpture's back side in the mold.

Mold turned out well, what a relief!

I love seeing the face reflection in the mold.

1 of 5 tells foundry they have 5 molds for this mold.

Molds are all labeled/numbered so that foundry doesn't lose any.

Seamlines are very tight.

Her seam lines are so tight that  I can’t even see where the seam line is on the shoulder areas and chaise lounge. It pays off to work hard and take your time with making a mold. This mold needs to serve an edition of 50 so I wanted to be sure and do my best!

Hope you learned a point or two, I know I did on this one!

Hi All,

After 11 months, I’m finally finished with the Beautiful Dreamer enlargement!  Below are finished pics of her prior to casting her into bronze. She measures about 15″ tall by 15″ wide (40% larger than the original was) and she’s still delicate looking at that size. 

 * Discoloration on the face is due to adding a different color of clay but no worries, it won’t show up in the bronze (of course ). *

First the pics and then below that will be comments about this whole process……

Note: Pics don’t show the hands, feet, and chaise’s legs because they were all removed and being molded.  Stay tuned for the completed sculpture photos in bronze soon!   

The original sculpture back in 2006 took a year to sculpt in natural earth clay. (She was very small, being about 10 1/2″ tall without her granite base.) It was my very first serious sculpture and I put my heart and soul into her.  Having her go into bronze was such an excitingly new experience.  Getting to watch how the whole process works from molding to pouring the wax and on into seeing her in the golden bronze stage (wish she could have stayed that color as it looked like she was gold) and then watching the patina artist bring out the rich tones of the bronze and colored her dress burgundy was one of my best “firsts” in life.

The master metal fabricator at Artworks foundry, Joel, who had worked there 30 years, wanted me to inspect the work he had done on the first cast of her.  I was such a newbie back then and really didn’t know what to even look for on the bronze.  Joel bowed humbly to me when introduced (never had anyone do that to me before but I guess I could get used to it, ha, ha) and said it was an honor to work on my piece and to meet me. Then he said that in all his 30 years of working at that foundry, this was the finest piece he’d ever worked on, and the most difficult.  He referred to it as “fine jewelry” as he hand polished the metal without using metal rotary tools because it might polish off her delicate anatomy and details.   Knowing he’d worked on Richard MacDonald’s sculptures and many other famous sculptor’s work in that S.F. bay area foundry, I took it as a big compliment, and it encouraged me to continue on to do more sculpting/bronzes.

About 2 years ago, Joel got cancer and I called and thanked him once again for working on my piece. He was such a hard working and nice man.  He passed away a few months later. That first bronze that he made for me is in my private collection as it has sentimental value because Joel worked on it and really cared for it, and it’s my first bronze baby!

As it turns out, I didn’t sculpt the original in such a way for her to be what they call “mold friendly,” (casts can easily be removed from the mold), and I added so much detail that she was extremely difficult for the foundry to get a good cast of her.  Joel had it down to a science, though; he told me that he poured her at exactly 2050 degrees for the bronze. That was hot enough for the metal to flow into all the delicate areas of the dress and flowers.  I learned that if he poured too hot then it would cause shrinkage because she was cast without a vent hole being cut out in her back. 

In the end, the foundry-produced mold failed, that is, broke down and ripped only after a dozen or so wax pours.  Don’t know for sure why that happend but I have an idea. (Could be because of using ultra-fast catalyst which allows mold rubber to cure more quickly but then become brittle in a short time).  And the foundry had such a difficult time casting her so small anyway.  By this time, I had been accepted to display at a very wonderful and beautiful gallery in Napa, that is, Quent Cordair Fine Art.  (It’s such an honor to be among the many excellent artists in that gallery.) My Beautiful Dreamer fit so well the romantic realism of the gallery.  I knew that I didn’t want to see her die, essentially, by not being able to reproduce her.  She held a special spot in my heart, being my first bronze, and I knew what I needed to do, no matter how painful (money and time consuming) it might be.

I then contacted a 3-D printing company, won’t mention any names here, and they gave me a good price since we were having a downturn in the economy and they  had time to do it. They said it would come to me all ready to mold, with all the crisp detail in tact.  Well, I don’t want to belabor the point, but it came to me a disaster and my heart sank.  I told my husband, “This is going to take me a hundred years to fix.”  It really did in many ways but I won’t go into what all that involved(boring to most).

But all good things take time, and now is the time of celebration for me.  I’m just about done with the mold of this enlargement and then off to the foundry the mold will go.  I have a 2011 copyright on her as I was hoping to have one completed at least by Dec. 15th.  We’ll see if I can get that to happen and not sacrifice quality in any way. 

Her detail shows up so much more now in this larger size.  I made her mold friendly by making sure that the deep undercuts of the original were filled in.   Also, on the original, her dress actually had a fine fabric texture made by pressing real fabric onto the wet clay.  That texture was impossible to reproduce in bronze if there might happen to be a pit that needed repaired (often does since metal casts aren’t perfect).  With the enlargement, I gave a loose organic fabric texture that can be replicated by metal artisans if need be. 

She lives!  It’s all worth it because of having the final results turn out well.

One thing I’m really excited about trying with her is to make a clay edition of her, perhaps in porcelain.  I can see her with real gold highlights here and there, maybe a rich burgundy glaze for her dress and glazes for her lounge.  That will be my playtime and I can’t wait to do one!  If one turns out well, then I’ll offer her as a clay edition as well as the bronze edition. I’ve never personally heard of anyone offering clay editions alongside bronze editions of the same sculpt, so maybe that’ll be a unique thing to set me apart from the large amount of bronze sculptors out there. Hope so anyway.  Got to do what is needed to get noticed and be different and have my own style. 

There is a very long thread on a forum back in 2005/06 that shows the original small edition size being sculpted from beginning (lump of clay) to end.  It has comments by other artists and advice, etc., as I went along.  If any of you would like to see that, please feel free to contact me and I’ll send you a link to it.  

Thanks for listening and allowing me to tell you the behind the scenes story of why I made an enlargement of Beautiful Dreamer. 

Our group show yesterday went really well at the Orland Art Center.  Luisa was just beaming with many wanting to take her picture along with me and the sculpture I made of her.  Luisa’s painting was on the wall for display too.  Luisa drove to the show herself (almost 92) and was wearing a beautiful royale blue dress along with her high heels.  She was going around meeting people and often would ask “Are you an artist?”   Then she would want to see where their particular painting was on the wall. 

One lady told me when she saw the sculpture of Luisa she got goosebumps from being moved by it.  She wanted a picture of Luisa with it.   A group from a local retirement community came and found inspiration in Luisa and how she is living life well into her 90’s.  I told Luisa that her story is helping those in their 80’s to have something to look forward to when they reach their 90’s.  That made her feel good to know that she was having that kind of impact.

Here’s a link to a newspaper story about Luisa and I, our friendship and our art:  http://www.orland-press-register.com/news/bonet-7735-davis-orland.html

Another and larger newspaper has called for an interview and news story on us too which I’ll share later.  I’ll take all the publicity that I can get.  The t.v. news interview went well and now getting in a few newspapers is really good!  I guess they liked the angle for the story!

~Tamara

Hi all,

Just wanted to invite you to the Orland Art Center group show for August with a special artist reception on August 5th from 3 to 7 p.m.   I’ll be exhibiting Luisa’s Smile, Wealth, and my clay version of Return of Joy.  My dear friend Luisa will be showing her painting that she did when she was around 40 (she’ll be turning 92 this month) called “Far Eastern Loveliness.”  

 Getting to display together with Luisa is a memory I will always cherish.  We did a t.v. news interview together the other night and are going to be interviewed tomorrow for a newspaper review. I hope that more of Luisa’s life story will be told in that review because she is inspiring at how to live a happy and rewarding life.

Tonight I gave Luisa a spaghetti squash, something she’d never seen or eaten.  She asked if it was sort of like a pumpkin.  I said it kind of is in the way that you prepare it. You first cut it in half, then scoop out the seeds, steam and scoop out the stringy like squash.  She’s going to try it and see if she likes it.  I told her it’s very difficult to cut it in half but she assured me she could do it because she has an electric knife.   

When we saw Luisa tonight, it was  nearly dark and she was outside on her county road coming back home pulling her little metal cart and her poodle and some of her nephews dogs were with her in tow.  She had been working in her yard and where her nephew lives pulling weeds etc.  That’s the secret to staying young:  never sit at home doing nothing, work, be involved, try new things like eating squash you’ve never seen, love people, give to people, be innocent like a child.  She looks at every new thing with wonder and I just can’t believe she’s so innocent and sweet at her age.  So many people change as they get older, get cold and calculating.  Not her, still innocent and someone could so easily take advantage of her because she’s so trusting but no one will because she’s too sweet. 

Hope to see you there at the show,

~Tamara

Hi all,

Here’s a clay version of my vineyard Return of Joy bronze edition with a slightly different pose and called “My Joy”.  With clay, it’s important to not have things sticking out too far (such as an arm) because of breakage.  So with her, she now has a sturdier wine glass and arm that attaches nicely in a few places (grape leaves and side of hand) to the other arm.  This will really give strength to the arm and keep those fingers back close to her body so they don’t get broken off!  Actually though, she has been fired to midrange temps so she is pretty durable already. 

There is nothing I enjoy more doing with my art than doing the finishing on my sculptures.  I get so excited to figure out which colors I’m going to use.  Purple is what I chose for her dress and the colors look really romantic and beautiful.  I actually pressed in grape leaves with glaze on them onto her dress but it didn’t show up on this particular sculpt (you can barely see it).  

The wine barrels look much like bronze or metal of some kind.  Her wine glass glows in the sunlight and is so stunning to see.  I was nervous to add color there but knew if I could pull it off it would really set the whole sculpture off with elegance.  It sure does and I’m so happy I did it!  The gold accents are on the wine glass and in the leaves around her face.

I took some photos of her in my yard and thought how beautiful she would look as a lifesize garden sculpture. Hope I get to do that someday!

I hope you enjoy looking at the pics below!

Edit: On new ceramic editions of her she has these changes:  more color to skin; add color to lips, cheek and eye color; dark rich blue purple grapes ready for harvesting.  Always great to give changes where needed to bump up the beauty as much as possible!

~Tamara

Front closeup of woman holding grapes.

It was a "Joy" to sculpt "Joy" again. I do love her!

Back view of unfired clay lady sculpture.

This is her bisque firing.

A black wash of color to show the detail was first applied.

China paints add a special touch.

Purple is one of my favorite colors and is the color tone of her dress!

In my backyard I took some photos of her for now.

You can see what looks like freckles but it's from the glaze and clay type.

Wine glass sets off the entire sculpture.

She's slightly pale and reminds me of Snow White in a way.

The burgundy literally glows with richness in the light.

She's looking at you!

The wine barrels looks much like bronze.

Closeup to show colors on her dress.

Back view of romantic lady.

Later I'll take professional pics of her with her black granite chipped edge base.

Pregnancy sculpture in 3D

Hi again,

Finished my pregancy sculpture and put her in a 3D program called Shoogleit. 

You can click play and watch it in full screen.   Also, there are closeup pics in the ceramic section of my website of her. 

The pregancy sculpt was fired multiple times.  I used a wash of low fire glaze over all of her while having thick and shiny glaze on the rose she’s holding and the large rose.  Real gold was fired on her ring on her finger.  “Fools gold” was used all over her body and on the signature of the babies name on her back.  This gold allows her to sparkle all over which I love!  She also has mother of pearl on the large rose and on her blouse which adds irridescense.

Pretty much I wanted her to look much like a monochrome sculpt with not a lot of color as I wanted her form to stand out without having color grab the eye.  It took a while to get the subtle effect of a bit of color that is graceful and elegant, not overstated.  Hope you like it the way she’s painted. 

Her hair is naturally very light blonde and her coloring is light so I chose a golden creamy color for the sculpt.   At first she looked too pale (deathly) and so I had to add some warm brown into the tone with washes of oil paint and then wax. 

Thanks for watching and comments are always appreciated.

~Tamara