Wee Jet and Wee Tater (b.20 March 2010)

Back in March (it is now the end of May - I am so behind in posting about my creations!), I received an order through my Etsy shop for two custom wee horses. When I received the photographs of Jess and Tater from Carianne, I nearly jumped up and down with delight! I had another chance to make a Wee Appaloosa horse, and a leopard appaloosa to boot!

Because of his white coat, Tater's spots (particularly on his body) had a dark brown centre, which faded to paler brown. This gave me a chance to try a new technique (I like it when that happens!) I made up a bull's eye cane using brown at the centre, and then wrapping this in a thin sheet of translucent clay which I'd coloured with a pinch of the same dark brown.

Overall, the effect worked pretty well, and for the other spots, I just used tiny dots of colour, which I could spread out into random shapes using a clay shaper.

But what to do with the leftover canes?! Because I used spots of varying sizes, the canes that were left had varying diameters. This is because it's often best to keep a cane intact and just reduce down a portion of cane to the desired size. So I was left with a number of lop-sided canes without any real prospect of making a wee leopard appaloosa in the near future. I decided to have a bit of fun, and made up this random sculpture using the leftover canes and the extruded clay from the mane and tail (Tater had unusual colourings for both). I'm not quite sure just what it is, and (in the words of Tom Paxton's The Marvelous Toy), I guess I never will!

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