Off the Porch and Growling

While digging through some older digitals - I found these, pictures of an un-fired and almost complete fountain head done in the style of Olmec heads.

When doing this type of stuff I use a heavily grogged clay and over exaggerate wrinkles, scars, any "heavy" lines I want to use because I will terra-sig or thin slip after everything is where I am happy with it. The heavily grogged clay allows me to push it around more while, the slipping and/or terra-sigging makes the pot smooth to the touch.

I have no idea if this is how other potter's, sculptors what ever you want to call them do it, it is merely how I do it. In this area I am self taught with bits and pieces learned from hand builders and folks who are willing to discuss how and why they do something.

You might have to sit back and sort of look off to the right to see this one clearly, its a terrible picture on my part and horrid lighting. What was I thinking? At anyrate, I was trying to show in this picture the actual opening inside the mouth area where the water would eventually bubble up from.

As an fyi to history, it fired beautifully and worked almost as intended, I ended up using a small stone inside the mouth area to achieve the effect I wanted. In the future I will do it differently.

A former student bought this and another pot from me during a students sale. I was rather suprised since I had priced my ware at what a true potter would as an experimental excercise, and just off of these two items made almost ninety dollars.