TRYING TO GIVE A LITTLE BACK AND A THANK YOU

I will be listing more dog figurines for sale on ebay through Christmas, and I've decided to donate 10% of the sale price of these figurines to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I've loved and worked with animals all my life, from showing and breeding Boxers with my Mom for over 10 years, to working for other breeders of champion show dogs, to working as a dog groomer, and then later as the office manager of a veterinary clinic in New Mexico, so it's only natural that animals, and specifically dogs, play such a large part in what I create with clay. I've donated many pieces to other rescue organizations to be auctioned to raise money for their cause because I feel so strongly about it.

Recently, I posted about the three kittens we've adopted since moving to Missouri. I wasn't looking to adopt even one kitten at the time. My husband is allergic to cats! But I just could not leave these babies to fend for themselves. So I feel VERY strongly about the importance of spaying and neutering pets. I'm sad to say that I've encountered a great deal of ignorance from people over the years concerning how important it is to spay and neuter. Especially during my years at the veterinary clinic. We had so many people bringing in puppies and kittens that they had found abandoned, and I heard such horror stories. Puppies found in a cardboard box on the side of a busy road, kittens found in a trash bag in the dumpster. It broke my heart then as it does now.

My three kitty boys are growing up, and the first of them will be neutered this week! The other two will be neutered over the coming weeks. I want to support the ASPCA in their continuing efforts to educate the public on the importance of spaying and neutering, in addition to their many other educational efforts. If you're interested in my clay art, I hope you will continue to check out my auctions over the next month and maybe you'll find something you'd just love to have, and in purchasing it, you'll be helping me help the ASPCA.

You can click here or on the ebay widget on the right side of this page to get to my ebay auctions:

Designs by Ginny Baker

I also want to thank Julie Leir-VanSickle of Craft Gossip for posting my Snowman and Bichons piece on her blog this week. Here's a link to the article if you're interested:

Craft Gossip

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

On my worktable today are more miniature dog sculptures in little Halloween scenes. I am having a lot of fun with these. They are only 2" tall and about 3" in length. I just love tiny things and I see a lot of people share that feeling.

I'm still debating on the tutorial I had been working on. I don't really care for the pdf format. Would much rather do a video tutorial but not sure how to go about it just yet, so that project has been on the back burner lately.

In sculpting though it's really just a matter of forming basic shapes and then blending them together. It's the refining, and the details added that make the difference in taking those basic shapes and transforming them into something special. It's adding clay to a piece or taking it away, and refining it til it looks the way you want it to. At least that's what works for me. I have seen in a book where someone tried to say they developed this method of sculpting with clay, to the great amusement of myself and many other clay artists, because it's the method we've all been using since we began sculpting with clay! The refining and the details just become better with experience.

So what begins as a little lump of clay has other bits of molded clay added to it, and those pieces are blended together, and the whole piece is refined and detail is added until we have the finished piece.

Starts out pretty rough, doesn't it? Hard to believe that blob is going to turn into anything recognizable, but it will. :o)






Still a bit more refining and detail needed, and a tail as well, but the little Bichon Frise has come a long way from its humble beginnings no?