For my Life Below Water project, I’m making a whale entangled in some strings to represent how over-whaling in the pass contributed to today’s whale extinction.
Some Inspirations
I looked at several whale pictures for inspiration and attempted to make one that looked like a real whale, mostly blue whale.
The Process
To make the whale’s body, I taped newspaper together to use as a base for my whale’s body. After allowing the whale to dry for a while, I cut it in half, removed the newspaper, and reassembled it.
I had to attach other parts while the clay was still wet, but it had already dried for a while, so I had to work as quickly as possible.
My whale’s flippers and tale had fallen apart while I waited for my sculpture to dry completely. So, after firing those pieces separately, I glued them back together, as shown as the above image.
After firing the sculpture, I painted the first layer with dark blue and white to make it easier to blend colours later. Then I used a variety of colours to paint the whale, primarily white, blue, black, and purple. I applied colour with different shades to make the whale appear more dimensional.
After finish painting the my sculpture, I glued some strings on the whale to show how whale is endangered because of over-whaling in the past.