Making the Fiery Dragons

This next project starts with a yellow orange skinner blend. It's rolled through my pasta machine many times, blending the colors, then rolled out on the thinnest setting, and finally rolled up.

I slice off two sides of the rolled up blend, flatten, and roll each piece thinner.

The strips are cut into equal lengths and stacked. Then I roll the stack to make it a round cane. This cane will be used to make the dragon's scales.

Here I shape the dragons, each one is formed from a stack of eight cut circles.

Applying the scales - I reduce part of the scale cane to two different sizes and slice it moderately thin. Next I put each individual scale in place and a make a small indentation at the top with an upholstery needle. The dragon is given ears, horns, and a glass bead eye – this is my favorite part of sculpting dragons – giving expression to the once plain lump of clay.

The second dragon.

After all that handling the dragons are rather warm, I lay them on plastic to rest and cool before the final posing.

I condition the clay for the glass and pose the dragons. Normally I bake on a sheet of paper or a padding of paper towels, but for this project the clay must be firmly pressed to a sheet of glass to prevent curling and distortion. After baking I'll slip a knife between the clay and glass and pop them apart.

Time to form the wings: I cut a portion of the scale cane in half and put the halves side by side to make the webbing. Slices are pressed onto a thin sheet of red clay, trimmed and curls added.

Two sets of wings facing opposite directions.

I gently put the dragons in place and add their wings. Next I add a mica "glow" around them and shape the gold flames.

All finished!


Close up detail. Now they're off to the oven...


...And here I've added a finish and put the dragons in the frame.