Thank you for such an amazing and thorough video about the realationship between these creatures and the ceramic craft! I very much enjoyed so many different works from all ages and origins, most of which I hadnt seen before. Your narration also is very thoughtful and complements the imagery very well. I myself do a little pottery and have made some scaled sized sculptures of extinct animal species from my country Colombia and south america. One of the most satisfying and also challenging species to depict was the now famous Titanoboa, the largest snake ever known. Thankfully i didnt make it at a 1:1 scale, since it sould be a technical nightmare! anyway, I would like to share with you, should you be interested, some pictures of the actual sculpture, which is now in Chile. Regarding the depiction of the snake itself, i would add that besides from the cylindrical and sinous shape of these animals, one of their outstanding features for me is their skin, which ive had the opportunity to get acquainted with in real life. It would be impossible for me to sculpt the scales on the body of the snake with such a level of detail and fidelity, specially in the areas where the body twists and curls. After learning about the work of Palissy, and thinking about the biology of these creatures, I realised that one of the beatiful properties of working with clay is that it is such an adaptable material which copies in exact detail any surface it is pressed against.... now as we know, snakes shed their skins as they grow, so I figured that instead of uselessly trying to mimic nature in such detail, I could rather replicate the process of shedding the skin of a serpent by using a fruit mesh to cover the fresh clay as to make a more natural pattern and achieve higher realism on the surface of the sculpt. I found out this worked better than thought and finally I used some bronze key sheddings molten with transparent glaze on a second firing to achieve a metallic look on the color of the surface of the piece. It is still one of the best pieces i think ive made, mainly because the fact i was able to draw inspiration from a biological process to achieve a realistic result. Anyways, I hope you and more people find this insight useful, and i hope to keep watching more of your interesting an enlightening videos! Best regards,
Hello and Thank you so much for your wonderful message. So glad to know you are doing wonderful work with your pottery.I was a Potter for almost 40 years www.lespeterkinpottery.com --you can contact me here and send me some photos...... Les Peterkin
Fascinating
Love the collection of images, fascinating!
I am really appreciating these brief pottery videos! Thank you for the history.
Thank you Elinor - , i't so rewarding when I receive lovely comments like yours.
Thank you for such an amazing and thorough video about the realationship between these creatures and the ceramic craft! I very much enjoyed so many different works from all ages and origins, most of which I hadnt seen before. Your narration also is very thoughtful and complements the imagery very well. I myself do a little pottery and have made some scaled sized sculptures of extinct animal species from my country Colombia and south america. One of the most satisfying and also challenging species to depict was the now famous Titanoboa, the largest snake ever known. Thankfully i didnt make it at a 1:1 scale, since it sould be a technical nightmare! anyway, I would like to share with you, should you be interested, some pictures of the actual sculpture, which is now in Chile. Regarding the depiction of the snake itself, i would add that besides from the cylindrical and sinous shape of these animals, one of their outstanding features for me is their skin, which ive had the opportunity to get acquainted with in real life. It would be impossible for me to sculpt the scales on the body of the snake with such a level of detail and fidelity, specially in the areas where the body twists and curls. After learning about the work of Palissy, and thinking about the biology of these creatures, I realised that one of the beatiful properties of working with clay is that it is such an adaptable material which copies in exact detail any surface it is pressed against.... now as we know, snakes shed their skins as they grow, so I figured that instead of uselessly trying to mimic nature in such detail, I could rather replicate the process of shedding the skin of a serpent by using a fruit mesh to cover the fresh clay as to make a more natural pattern and achieve higher realism on the surface of the sculpt. I found out this worked better than thought and finally I used some bronze key sheddings molten with transparent glaze on a second firing to achieve a metallic look on the color of the surface of the piece. It is still one of the best pieces i think ive made, mainly because the fact i was able to draw inspiration from a biological process to achieve a realistic result. Anyways, I hope you and more people find this insight useful, and i hope to keep watching more of your interesting an enlightening videos! Best regards,
Hello and Thank you so much for your wonderful message. So glad to know you are doing wonderful work with your pottery.I was a Potter for almost 40 years www.lespeterkinpottery.com --you can contact me here and send me some photos...... Les Peterkin