Balinese Dreaming, in Bas relief with Paper Clay

I have this Balinese daemon nightmare going on. Well, I say night mare; it is in part quite wonderful and exciting. I have been having these dreams and day dreams for weeks now.

So I decided to try to put it into…picture, if you like

I am starting off with a blank canvas with the face of a beautiful African girl  I once cast.

…and in comes the Daemons. Breathing fire, trailing fragrant flowers…

The beauty with paper clay is that you can dream and ponder for days; the clay is so flexible that you can add wet clay to dry.
But I am having some issues; I bought some slightly grogged paper clay thinking it would not warp as easily as un-grogged. But the tiny sand grains are actually getting in the way of the fine detail I am trying to achieve.

Bali is one of my favourite places on earth. I dream of going back there one day; perhaps that is why I’m being visited by all these fragrant monsters, faeries and daemons…

On a purely practical point, I may try to find some paper clay without the grog.
I am not sure how to finish the piece, much less how to glaze it; but I’ll keep you updated.
Perhaps it won’t get finished until I find myself sitting in a village square somewhere near Ubud, during a full moon, listening to a Gamalan orchestra and watching an all night dance and  shadow puppet display…

http://youtu.be/OKky3rdSFV4

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