Time at Penland

Last Sunday, I packed everything I needed for Penland....except what I needed to transfer photos from my camera to my laptop. So much for my plans to post daily from the school. However, now that I am in Columbia, I have borrowed what I need from Cinder. (Thank you, sis!) And now I can post a bit about Penland.

The class I am taking is Animal Sculpture. The instructor is Susan Halls, whose work I've admired for quite some time. The following photos show what we're learning here in the NC mountains. First, Susan demos how she makes a "standing" animal.

Susan uses a heat gun to dry the torso before before adding more animal parts. The wooden dowels lift the piece, making it ready for ...

Legs! Making them is the next step. Susan makes it look easy. Of course, it's not.

Legs attached.

"Arms" come next.

We use paper clay in class. I've never worked with it before but I will again. It lends itself beautifully to this type of work. Once the legs are attached, the neck is added.

Next comes the head. This is when the animal takes on all of it's personality. And it's one of the most challenging aspects of the animal sculpture for me. Eyes...Ears...Mouth...Nose!

Once the piece is constructed, Susan slips it and puts it in the drying closet...
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...before moving on to a "sitting" animal form.

And a reclining rabbit form...

A lot of amazing animals are being sculpted here. Some will go in the raku kiln and others will be smoked. Once I return to Penland I'll snap more photos of finished pieces.