Hi guys and welcome back to my channel, Blue Nose Trading. My name is Tori Solis, and today I'm going to be using the black clay from my last video to sculpt a dragon. Before I get started here, I'm going to put some of this Texas hand salve from The Bohemian Shepherdess, a friend of mine at my own local market. This is an awesome salve that she has that has calendula, olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, sweet almond oil, beeswax, sunflower oil and shea nut butter to protect my hands. Because I have had a few issues with my hands getting really dry while I am sculpting.
As always, I am going to be sculpting onto one of my wheel thrown pots. I'm going to sign my name onto the bottom before I get started. The black clay that I am using today is the clay that I wedged in. If you watched my prior video, I did one where I mixed the stain in with a mixing attachment into slip, and one where I wedged it into the clay. I just happened to grab the ball of clay that I wedged it into.
I'm going to form the body of this dragon. He's going to be a little bit shorter. This pot is a little bit smaller than some of the ones I have made before. I'm going to slip, score and attach him to the pot how I'd like him. He is ideally going to be a black dragon on a red pot. I'm still kind of testing, this is all new, and I haven't fired any of this stuff yet, so, we will just see how it goes.
His name is Noir, the black dragon. I am sculpting in his teeth individually. Going to carefully add them to the top and put them in. I am using my new sculpting tools from Kramer Sculpting Tools. They are so beautiful and amazing. I'm working them into my mix. I'm also using my old tool, it's hard for me to not love this dental tool, it's probably my favorite sculpting tool because I work in such tiny details. I'm just adding a little bit of slip, attaching and sculpting each of these teeth into the mouth of the dragon. As usual, I make the upper jaw first and then I make the lower jaw separately. I am going to paint these individually with the Mayco underglazes.
A lot of these methods are still in testing. I've haven't gotten to fire anything. I am very close though. In some of my upcoming videos we should be firing some of these because we are going to have the kiln installed very soon. Ideally, next week. Maybe it will even be done by the time this video comes out.
Now that I have the bottom jaw all painted and sculpted out, I'm going to attach it to the upper jaw and blend it in how I want it. I'm going to use my tool to refine the shape a bit. I'm also going to add on the arms and the back legs, and make the little claws.
This dragon and pot are being sculpted out of a terracotta, it is Longhorn Red with grog by Armadillo Clay. The dragon body itself has had black mason stain 6600 wedged into the clay at about 6-8% to the clay body. I'm not sure if that is going to be enough, but I can tell that there is at least going to be a difference between the two colors. I'm hoping that the dragon and the pot are both going to come out colored how I would like them and mostly matte. I have a few ideas for adding some spots of glaze, and just touched of shiny glaze to the dragon. But I would like to have most of his body be a matte without any glaze, so I am using the mason stain to hopefully achieve this look.
I'm marking where I am going to put his spikes and them I'm scoring up his back where those spikes are going to be. I will start down here at the tail and work my way up his back. It seems like it's easier to put the spikes on going in this direction. I don't always remember that it's easier to put the spikes going this direction and sometimes I go the other way and regret that, and wish that I had went this way.
I still have no idea where I am going to sell these, or who I am going to sell them to. A lot of people on the internet have shown interest in them, but I am so scared to ship them because they are so fragile. Even after they are fired, the spikes are so fragile, I just don't know how to get them where they need to go in one piece. These dragons are, for now, they are looking like they are going to be something that I take to shows and only sell in person. If you're in the Dallas area, you might be able to get ahold of one, and if you're willing to risk it, I might be willing to ship them, with the understanding that we all understand the risks involved with shipping them. They would be fully insured, of course, to where if they did break, I would be able to refund someone and also keep the money for me and give them their money back. But at the end of the day, people don't want a refund, they want the dragon that they bought, so that would be the ultimate goal.
I'm just going to finish this guy up here by giving him a pattern of slip and he is all done. So this is Noir, the hopefully black dragon. If you think he looks pretty awesome go ahead and give this video a thumbs up. If you'd like to follow my ceramic journey and see a weekly art video, you can subscribe to this channel, Blue Nose Trading. If you'd like early access and access to exclusive content, you can find me at patreon.com/bluenosetrading, and I will see you guys next week!
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