Death Birdie Clay Sculpture

I have been wanting to take a class on clay sculpting for a few years now. A new clay studio Peacock Clay Collaborative opened up in town, and posted they were having classes for beginning clay sculpting. I decided to go ahead and take the class. I am having a blast and really enjoy working with clay. This Death Birdie is my first clay sculpture since I was in elementary school, and I made an ashtray for my Mom for Christmas. 

Not to bad for my first sculpture. Here are some progress photos to see how he was developed. On the first day of class we did a couple of pinch pots and then put them together to create a ball. This became the body of the bird. At this point it kind of looks like a fish to me.

Here we added the shape for the skull face.

Now I just added some details.

Then completed the final details and sculpting. This is before the first firing.

Here it is after the firing. We were so scared it was going to break.

Now time for painting the glazes.

The pink is the gloss glaze.

Here is the final after it was completed.

I have a couple other sculptures I am working on, so keep an eye out for that. Don't forget you can follow my work in progress on Instagram at @creativelytara.

2012 Let's Explore Science Cover Designs

I designed these covers for an ongoing series we have called Let's Explore Science. These were from our copyright year 2012. They were written and designed for grade levels 4–6. 

This first book Enterprise STEM discusses the topics of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. It explains how professionals in these fields work together.

This book discusses how fossils are formed, how they are found, and what they tell us about the past.

This title Understanding Biomes talks about the different kind of habitats and the animals that live there.

Science was always one of my favorite subjects in school, so I always enjoy working on these.

October Adventures

October is one of my favorite times of the year because of Halloween!!! I wish I could say because of Fall and the cooler temperatures but it is still hot here in Florida. This was a busy, creative month so there are a bunch of pictures. Let's start off with the sky photos I took this month.

I started the month off with my first painting class. You can read more about that here.

I decided to join the CreativeSprint challenge this month. Basically you sign up for an email of a daily creative prompt to challenge you. I started off with a bang and then about halfway through, I started feeling a bit frustrated by the prompts. I think most of the frustration was I had to many things going on, so I threw in the towel on Day 15. Here are the pictures of what I accomplished:

I am still taking my clay class every Thursday. Here are some progress pictures of my Crazy Dead Bird. I plan on doing a blog post on the complete process of building this sculpture. Which is my first sculpture ever.

This moon plaque is my second clay project. If you look at the last picture you will noticed that it broke. It took us a while to decide what to do to fix it. We decided to go ahead and fire it while it was broke and use an epoxy to glue it back together. I won't be able to use a firing glaze on it, but I think i have an idea for a finish on it. We will see how it comes out, if I don't like it I will rebuild it.

My sister made me this cute steampunk punkin:

Here is one of my work doodles. I did a couple more but they ended up being studies for projects to come, that I am not ready to share yet.

I only got a couple more of my portraits done. I am in the middle of working on another one now.

This is another project I started and I am loving the results so far. This is going to be a mixed media/found objects piece. Inspired by Finnabair's style.

Most of these photos I have shared on my Instagram @creativelytara. To see my progress photos and more follow me there.