This will not be as long a post this time because I have to be on the road early. I have managed to make some more clay and put saddles on the other two animals.
I saved the tiger for the last ones so that I could learn from my mistakes on the first ones. Fortunately, this clay is very forgiving while it is moist. Then it dries as hard as stone. I do not yet know how well it will sand. The edges are fairly rough, but overall, the flat surfaces are mostly smooth and will not need a lot of sanding.
If you are a new reader and want more information on how I made the clay, scroll back two posts. If you cannot scroll back, you can look at it by going to the blog directly and then scroll back: folkartbycaroljones.blogspot .com. All of my projects for the last decade or so are there.
The other animal that received a saddle was the second horse. I just have not figured out how to move the pictures around. I used to be able to click and drag the photo where I wanted it to be, but that option does not work any longer.
I left a little more saddle blanket showing on this animal. I wanted to add some decorative elements and have some areas to paint. I may add some clay elements to this to make them stand out. I had started on this the other day, but it was one of those drop everything days where I had to deal with problems and was not able to get back to the project before the clay started to harden. I will have to make a new batch of clay, but it will be a smaller batch than the previous ones.
I wish that I could say that it was time to start to sand and paint the figures, but I am not there yet. The bridles or more accurately halters still need to be added. That will be a different technique entirely. While this clay is strong, I am not sure it this clay would be strong enough since these pieces are so small and narrow. I do have a plan for making the reins, which I will be showing in the next blog post.
Beyond that, I need to talk about the other decorations for the animals. The intricately carved carousel horses I saw in my youth were bedecked with carved flowers and scrolling ribbons. I was planning on having some of those features on these animals but have run into a problem. The flowers would be so small that they are very hard to sculpt. My hands just are no longer up to working that small. To give you an idea, since it is hard to judge the scale from these photos, a flower that is 1.3 centimeters in diameter would be too large for these animals.
I actually looked online for small craft flowers thinking that perhaps I could cover them in paper clay. The 1.3-centimeter ones were the smallest I found. So, I am on to Plan B and Plan C. I might be out of my mind to try Plan B. I went online to learn how to make paper roses. I will give it a try, even though the bits of paper (or other materials) will be so small that I will be holding the pieces with tweezers. Even if I could only make a few, it would help. Before I give up on my idea, I will give it a try.
My Plan C is probably more workable. Instead of flowers, make little balls and paint them like jingle bells or other flat decorative objects. It might change the flavor of the piece a bit, but sometimes you just have to say that something else has to be done due to circumstances beyond my control.
Check back next week for the next blog post.
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