Deer Skull Pottery Project

~For this project, I began working with about two large handfuls of wedged clay. At first I was not sure what figure to make, but I've always been so deeply inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's work with animal skulls. I then thought of trying to bring the interesting form of a skull to a three dimensional perspective with my medium of clay. I went on google and found some different viewpoints of a deer skull, which really helped me add some realistic detail to the piece. The first step of my process was getting the general shape of the skull. I then let the piece dry a little bit more to get a more solid piece that made it easy for me to carve in and mold the details to the form. The third step is thinning out the skull, by using a curved tool to carve out large chunks of clay where I found that it was thick. I am now putting the final touches on this greenware piece, and making sure that it will make it through its first firing in the kiln. So far in my creation process, I like the shapes and ridges I have created and hope that my piece will stay in tact throughout the firing and glazing stages. I regret not adding some deer antlers or horns to the figure, but felt that they would be come extremely fragile before going into the kiln and would most likely break off, destroying the piece altogether.

~Below are pictures of my project thus far, and some of my inspirations as well as references.