Dragon sculpture

Hey everyone!

First let me thank you who have left nice comments on here. I'm sorry I can't reply to them individually, Blogger doesn't seem to have a feature that allows you to reply which I think is pretty silly. I think I might write to them and suggest that they make a feature where you can reply. The other weblogs I'm on have a reply thing, so why not here?

Anyway, today I would like to show you a dragon sculpture I made a couple of days ago.

Click on it to see the full size version. I am working on my sculptures slowly but surely. To do this I have been making a wide variety of characters, both those that belong to my friends and also my own. I wanted to make a dragon sculpture so this is not a character I have but just a random dragon. Afterwards, it occured to me that I could have made one of my own dragon characters so next time I make one, it will be one of those.

This one is called Augustus P. Drake. I don't know what the P stands for and the name is just one I made up. He's the biggest sculpture I've made so far and one of the most detailed. I didn't use armatures although I should have really because I had to prop bits of him up while he baked. I need to use armatures in wings so they don't flop around as much. He is holding a crystal and I am happy with how his paws came out since usually I make paws too big and clunky and they just look fat and silly.

I love how I did his head and for once I can say that I am happy with the sculpture as a whole. Usually there are various parts I think I could have done better or that didn't come out very well. The only small niggle I have is that one of his wings should have been higher and it was when I put him in the oven to bake, it must have slipped down so that was disappointing. Once again, I really need armatures.

As I said before, I have another dragon in mind and I want to make another of the characters from my book too. I have already made one which came out nicely (except for the front legs) and is in my deviantART gallery but if I do another, sadly I won't be able to show it since my book characters are pretty unique. It will be a test to see if I can make a reptilian character standing on all fours with a wire armature.

I hope you like Augustus anyway, I've come a long way since I first started with polymer clay.

~Lara

Pet Portraits

Hi guys,
it's Lara here. I thought I'd make a post and tell you about some of the artwork I'm doing. I have a variety of talents artwise. I can make things in clay, draw, paint (although I prefer to paint on things like t-shirts and figures as opposed to just canvas or paper), I do some digital art, I can needlefelt and mostly I work in traditional media.

I thought I would tell you about my pet portraits course in this post. I started the course last year with London Art College, for a diploma in pet portraits and it finishes next month. I've come pretty far since then and although I still struggle sometimes, I am getting the hang of it for the most part.
A few of my images can be seen on my Storm Artists gallery, those are the ones I'm most proud of. My latest piece that I sent off to be marked by my tutor (the course is one you do from home) is this, a 5 picture montage of my cat, Borris.
I think you can click on it for a bigger one although I did resize it. The full sized version is in my gallery.
I am proud of this, I like the top two images and the middle coloured one. The bottom two images aren't as good. I captured his personality in the coloured one very well even though the head's symmetry is a little off. I am very critical of my work as you can tell lol!
I worked from photos for this. I had prepared quite a while ago for this particular piece of coursework, it involved taking a lot of photos of the animal and choosing five favourites. I always take lot of photos of my cat and make videos of him too. A few of the photos have been just by chance and I've caught him in lots of cute poses.
This is one of the pieces I sent in for marking, along with a portrait of a horses' head. You can also see the horses' head in my gallery.
I hope to be good enough to sell these since I love drawing animals and I always have ever since I was a small child. I have three more pieces of coursework to do before the course ends and I'm waiting to see what my tutor thinks of my cat, Borris and the horse!
Please let me know what you think! I don't get many comments on my pet portraits since I only really post them on Storm Artists and not many people watch me there just yet.

~Lara

Our wedding jewellery

We have decided recently to add a wedding gallery to our web site, The Silver Lodge. It all came about when we received an email in March from a young woman who was getting married in May this year. She had been browsing our web site and came across some polymer clay calla lilly focal beads I had made using the colours of real flowers I grow in my garden as these flowers come in beautiful shades, not just the usual white. She asked if I could design a bracelet and earrings for her in cream to match a tiara she had just bought. I sketched a design and made it up using sterling silver and some Swarovski pearls and crystals. It was really pretty and unique.

The young lady was pleased with the photos we emailed her and was thrilled when she received her set. It was a real joy to be able to make this unusual design and know it was for such a special occasion. That was when we decided it would be really nice to add a bridal gallery even though much of our jewellery is occasion jewellery. We have since made another but different bracelet as most of our jewellery is only one of a kind!

Jackie & Lara

Our first post!

This is our first venture into the world of online journals. We are a mother and daughter; Jackie and Lara, both multimedia artists. It is our intention here to share some of our work with you.
We have a web site called The Silver Lodge which is full of our jewellery designs including polymer clay and art jewellery.
We live in a beautiful spot on the south west coast of England where the sea meets the sky and we do not have far to look for inspiration for our jewellery or artwork.