kateleveringART

There will be 3 pieces in this series. They are each planned to be about 22 inches long. I completed the first animal in the triangular pose on the right of the first page. The young girl at the top of the page who has something trapped under her front paws didn’t make it through the kiln but has helped me learn the limits of larger pieces and when it is necessary to add reinforcements like lengths of wire in longer appendages.

Red foxes are a popular subject for ceramic sculpture with their fine features and iconic coloring. Sometimes to my disadvantage I tend to shy away from the popular and mainstream. My plan was to create a fox template for my workshop series and move along. Creation of a template requires a careful analysis of shape and proportion (read more). I spent a fair bit of time examining and manipulating red fox images. Once I started I was seduced by their incredibly expressive postures, ears, and facial features.

As with humans, the internal world of animals is most observable when they are completely intent on a task or activity when their stance and meign are governed by instinct alone. My previous life as a biologist who studied predation probably influenced my focus of foxes after food.