Here’s an update to my figurative clay sculpture of a woman relaxing with her feet in the water.  I adjusted her neck and head to a more relaxed position. Hopefully it looks better now.  It’s hard to tell sometimes after I’ve looked at it for a while.  Some lace has been added to her dress to the top area.  Since this was supposed to be a rough sketch type of sculpture, there are going to be things that aren’t spot on and that will have to do. Otherwise it would be a refined sculpture and she isn’t that.  I’ve enjoyed doing this type of sculpture very much. 

There’s just some more to go here and there but the basics of her is complete.  Thanks for looking and comments are appreciated as always.

~Tamara
 

Front view of woman putting her toes in the water sculpture.

Front view of woman sculpture.

Closeup of woman resting on the grass sculpture.

Closeup of woman sculpture.

Side view of woman sculpture.

Back side of woman.

Here’s another post that isn’t about sculpture but just about daily events on our property. I guess this effects my sculpture because the view out my studio window has changed.

I’ve attached a bunch of pics to show the process of removing our Leylandy Cyprus trees and how that task was done in just a few hours! About 10 years ago, we wanted instant privacy since on one side of us there’s a messy unkept property (now they are finally cleaning it up since the old man moved after 50 years!). So we planted 150 trees 6 ft apart and they grew so nice and fast! And they looked so rich and green….. until they started dying one by one.

We had seen a neighbor’s property that had their whole row of cyprus trees die and we knew that was going to happen to ours too. Their lifespan is maybe 20 years but maybe because of being in irrigated pasture they were more prone to mold and disease. Well, in any case, we didn’t want scraggily looking trees so we had the monumental task of thinking of how to get rid of them.

Happily, we had a friend of a friend that has a chipper company where they take out whole orchards (ours was a small job). So he came over and got right on taking out our trees (all for only $500!) including the roots! He just bats down the trees with his big back hoe and then pulls them out of the ground like a weed! It was amazing to see and in 4 hours all the trees were gone! What would have taken us months to do by hand with a chainsaw was done in an afternoon.

The backhoe just began to take out the trees!

He's grabbing the root and pulling it out.

You can see orange branches which are dead trees.

Batting down the tree.

My view out my sculpture studio window.

Being careful by the power lines.... eeeks!

He got really close to the lines.

They stacked all the trees and then moved them into a big chipper machine. This is so much better than burning the trees which is what we had been doing one by one as they died. This way, the trees are going to good use. Recycle is always the way to go!

The large pile of trees ready to be chipped.

Trees going to good use.

Closeup of the chipper process.

This machine looks like a pincher bug.

They filled a few truckloads with chips.

Then the work began for my husband and I. With the help of my nephew and friend, Brandon, we dug 80 large holes to plant Blue Aptos redwoods. Those redwoods grow really well in our area and we already have several on the frontage of our property. We planted them 12 ft. or so apart to give them room to get big.

Travis and Brandon working.

Brandon is raking and getting ready to start digging holes.

Finally finished planting the Blue Aptos trees.

Our new trees will look like the trees at the front of our property.

Tomorrow we’ll put in the drip line and then we’ll finally be all done.

So in between all that, I’ve only had little time to play in the clay but this needed to be done. Back to the studio I go soon!

The other day I had a moment to play in clay so I thought I’d experiment.  I made a terracotta flower pot and a terracotta red rose.  My terracotta clay is so pretty and so I thought I’d see how it works to combine it with my white clay.  Well, so far so good except for I haven’t fired it yet.    That’s the tricky part.  If the terracotta clay shrinks more so than the other then I will have cracking.  

Doing experiments on simple things like this helps me to see how it will go and I can use this information on my serious sculpture.  I may want to combine the clays again when doing figurative work.  Maybe the skin will be terracotta and the clothing in white clay (that will take the glazes in different way than terracotta).

Thanks for looking at the pics.

Yesterday there was a gopher snake on our front porch and Lionel was doing his thing as a cat. He watched and followed and waited patiently but for some reason he never went in for the kill. Well, that’s a good thing because I don’t think I wanted to see the poor snake go down that way. Maybe it was the hissing from the snake that kept Lionel from getting him. Ron said he has seen Lionel get a snake that big out by our oleander bushes.

This morning when Ron went to let Lionel out the front door to feed him, he held back and didn’t even go outside. Usually, Lionel will push his head up on the door and squeeze through the door as Ron opens it. This time he peeked his head out and looked around and didn’t go out. So he’s a cautious cat sometimes. Hee, hee. Well, he did finally go out but it took some coaxing.

The pics don’t show very much but at least you can see Lionel’s interest in the snake. Ron got out the broom and decided to play a bit with the snake.

Well, that’s the excitement on our property for the time being. Other than that we’ve taken out all our perimeter trees and planted about 80 new trees. So we’ve been doing lots of work but are getting it done before it gets really hot out here. Next week they say the hot weather is coming.

Hope you enjoyed the cat story. If you have animal stories to share, I love to hear about them. We are blessed to be around these creatures and see their cute ways. Have a nice rest of the evening,

~Tamara

P.S. I know that the alyssum need watering in the pot (my mom will tell me for sure!).

By clicking on these thumbnail pictures a closer view and the entire picture will show…..

Here’s just a note to let you know that I’ve finished some of those simple quickie sculpts, i.e. cats and woman with a cat, rose, etc.  They are on the ceramic portion of my website.  I sure did like the way the red clay turned out with a wash of thin red glaze.  Also, the Hope Rose flower took many firings to get it looking right.  After the glaze firings then I added china paint and irridescent gold and did a couple more firings.  I decided to glaze the rectangle base and it turned out nice (however I think if it were unglazed it would have looked a bit better). 

Thanks for following my blog notes. 

~Tamara

This post isn’t about sculpture but just something I’ll put in my daily event category on my blog. (I did sculpt on my “Resting” sculpture for awhile this afternoon. I put water with ripples surrounding her toes). Today we found that for the first time our animal trap (that we keep by our koi pond primarily for raccoons) had a bird in it. We’ve caught raccoons, opossums, and neighborhood cats and now a blue jay. (Incindentally, a few roads away there is a big natural pond that we ‘relocate’ the raccoons to).

Here’s a picture of Lionel looking at his easy prey. If only he could get inside the trap. Lionel loves to catch birds and rodents and bring them to our front door and eat them. It’s not a lovely thing but he loves to do it. He has big bird-catching paws and does his best to catch them on our property.

Lionel looks at his easy prey.

While it was raining this morning I went out and let the poor blue jay out and he happily flew away. Then I couldn’t believe it that a little while later, a few hours, he was back in the trap and had set it off again. Here’s the picture of him in the trap. We may just have to make a pet out of him. This time Ron let him go but when he flew off he gave Ron the what for with his squawking.

Blue Jay caught for the second time today.

Our spoiled cat loves the outddoors but equally loves to come inside with any kind of inclement weather. He especially dislikes wind. So here he is dashing to come inside today after we let the bird go. Then he plays with his favorite toy that cost no money (forget about the special whistling bird toy that we bought for him). Ron pulls a rope along with a frayed end and Lionel attacks it like it’s prey. This is a game we play with him usually in the evenings. He hides around the corners of things and then Ron pulls the rope along until he pounces on it. That’s pretty much the game but Lionel never gets tired of it.

Lionel dashes to come inside the house.

Lionel's favorite toy is a fuzzy rope.

It poured rain today along with hail and lightning. Then after the storm we had such a pretty blue grey sky that I took a picture of it.

Spring rain drains off our hammock.

Today it poured down rain.

After the rain a deep grey blue sky shows in the background.

Thanks for watching some of the things that happened today here in not sunny California.

~Tamara

A friend of mine asked me why I sculpt the figure nude before I add the clothing.  She felt like this was a waste of time since the fabric will cover the anatomy anyway. Well, if I were sculpting a Victorian woman with a big puffy dress then I wouldn’t need to sculpt the legs in detail.  But for the most part, I like to sculpt clothing that is fitted.   Even loose clothing looks best and most believable to first sculpt the figure nude, then slowly add the fabric on.  This allows the shape of the body to show through.

 If we look at the clothing that we are wearing right now, notice how the contours of your body show and the fabric is only a thin layer on top of that.  So when I told my friend the answer it was a little more clear to her why we as sculptors do it that way. 

~Tamara

I worked on my resting woman sculpture today. Below are some progress pics of how she looks now. I’ve added a bow onto her dress. Other than that, I put more of the  fabric on (still more to go on that) and finished her hair. 

This was supposed to be a just for fun sculpture but once again, I find myself putting more into it than expected. In contrast,  for the woman holding the kitty, I spent just a couple of hours and kept it simple. But with this one, I’ve gotten attached and I’m enjoying doing the extra detail work. But still she isn’t perfect but that’s okay. 

I may end up doing more of these type of sketches (easier and less costly to cast in bronze) because they enable me to get right to the fun part. Anatomy is the most difficult so when I get past that and on to the clothing and hair, I’m a happy girl.

Have a great day and thanks for watching,

~Tamara

Today was so much fun, to put on the hair and clothes on the lady sitting on the grassy embankment. It all went very smoothly and easily which is nice for a change.

I often pick sculptures to do that have difficult elements to them (i.e. canoe) but this sculpture doesn’t have the hard to sculpt elements, other than the anatomy of the woman. It’s hard for me to believe that I did this in only a few sessions. I’m thankful to have improved since it used to take me forever to sculpt things.

The general idea of the clothes and hair are in shown in the pics but more work is needed on them.  Another session of sculpting and it should be almost done.

I’ll add some grass coming out of the water. Also, the water will be at a higher level to where it’s just over the tip of her big toe and then I’ll put some ripples in the water around the toe.

The back of the neck I sculpted more so than these pics show.  But it really didn’t need sculpted because the hair covered that area.  I left the extra clay there though because it helps keep the head from coming off.  Then right before I put the hair on, I carved out the back of the neck area.

I’ll thin out the leg a bit more at the calf area. It’s pressing on the ground so it’s bulging out but the overall leg looks wide. Also, I’ll work out the knee some more. Of course, the more I look at all aspects of the anatomy I find more things to do. It’s all a matter of how refined I want the sculpture. I do want it to maintain it’s freshness so I don’t want to overwork it.

Thanks for looking at the pics. If you haven’t posted on my blog before, please feel welcome to comment as I like to hear from viewers to see what they think.

After doing the Hope rose I thought I should work on this sketch of  a young lady.  She’s a work in progress of a young lady sitting on an embankment with her feet dangling in the water.  I could do a serious sculpture of her one day. The drawing below I did back in 2008 and it was just waiting to be made into clay.

Concept sketch for sculpture.

After a couple of short sessions I have her to the point she’s at now. I’m really enjoying doing these just for fun type of sculptures. This one speaks to my heart as it’s called “Where my soul can rest.” She’s really at peace and enjoying nature with it’s quietness. 

Side view of lady resting.

I didn’t use a model for this although I was going to have my niece come over and pose for me but it didn’t work out. So, she’s not accurate but close enough for a maquette.

Front view of woman.

After a bit more anatomy, I’ll start the fun part of adding the hair and clothes. A couple of water plant grasses will be in the water to help show that it’s water. One more session and she should be done. I’ll be getting back to my Indian woman and finishing her up too. I just felt like doing a simple easy sculpture. 

Front view of woman.

Woman sitting on an embankment sculpture.

Thanks for watching her progress.

~Tamara