Meet Turq the Paperweight Lizard!


One of the techniques I learned at Hadar's Tucson workshop used flat floral ribbon to make the shapes for clay.  The floral ribbon is flexible and can be cut with scissors.  Once it is bent into a shape, clay is cut and dried against the ribbon.  It is removed after the clay dries and
one can proceed assembling the pieces.  At the class,we worked making jewelry but I wanted to experiment a little more and decided to make contemporary lizard for fun. 

I used Goldie Roman Bronze clay as one of my goals this spring is to use all my various metal clays from several companies and then decide which I really like.  This turned out to be my largest piece I've made and just fit in a rectangular pan I had. Something I had to consider when I designed Turq.  His finished size is 3"x 5".

My basic design with the floral ribbon

Placing the dried clay pieces on a background

Decisions:  do I want a bronze lizard that covers the skeleton or not?

Nope!  I want to inlay some colored stones in the body and around the head.
  The lizard fired beautifully causing much happiness!  Next sanding and polishing and then grinding the turquoise chips into finer pieces.  I decided to use coral beads along the spine for accent.  The stones are held in place with groutless tile adhesive and had to be done in 3 layers.  Pretty time consuming.
Turq the Lizard is resting on my artifact shelf enjoying his place of honor.

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Location: Prescott, AZ, USA

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