Making Chocolate Labs

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~Scott Adams

No, not real chocolate, but brown colored Labrador retrievers.I thought I would show how I work on some ornaments. I usually spend ine day a week mixing up clay and making clay colors. Some colors are more difficult to make and to use. Mixing up black and brown are difficult due to the amount and type of stains used in the clay body. Brown is difficult due to the fact that it is hard to remove the stain from your hands, which gets on all of the other colors I use.

You can see the brown stain all over the finders as I sculpt. I have towels and water handy at al times and have to change the sculpting cloth as soon as I am done with the color.

After I have made a couple I add on the color details. As you can see, my fingers were not clean enough when adding the angel wings, just touching the brown before adding the white transfers the stain. So I start over and remove the wing and replace it.

My idea of an assembly line!

I usually only make a few at a time, and I try to make them all different, otherwise, I would go insane! These little dogs must dry a couple of weeks, then go in the kiln to be bisque fired, clear glazed,then re -fired to porcelain temperatures of 2400 degrees! Thanks for looking at how I make these little critters.