The dragons

            During the second semester of my thesis, I made the dragons that live in the environment I created over the summer and previous semester. I thought at the beginning of the semester that they would take less time than the stump and log and tree trunk, since they were smaller. It turned out that this was not the case. Originally the plan was to make between 15 and 20 dragons. I ended up with 6.

            This was a good number to have placed in the environment at any one time. I wanted to have more largely because I planned to wood fire them. I wanted to be able to place some of them in riskier parts of the kiln without fear of ending up with fewer than I needed if they warped or cracked excessively, as things do in the wood kiln.

            I made three of the dragons from a red stoneware, and three of them from a porcelain intended for wood firing. 

            Porcelain dragon:

            Red clay dragon:

            This is what they looked like in the exhibition:

            I used some sticky putty on their feet to make sure that an accidental bump would not send them splashing off of their perches, although they were well balanced enough that they would not fall off on their own.