The Dragon – he is done!!! What an adventure and learning curve! Head breaking off and having to be re-attached, premature flying lessons, broken base, broken tail, broken neck spikes, broken wings – gads! Anything and everything that could go wrong went wrong, BUT! He is finished and I think he is gorgeous. Just needs a name.
I’ld just finished the second wing and was carefully carrying him to the oven for the final curing, the darn thing slipped on the tile and I could not stop it falling! Luckily it landed flat on the base. Unfortunately – the base was glass! Millions of slivers of glass all over the kitchen floor – I have stone floors! – the rock separated from the base and extreme profanity went flying in every direction. Didn’t know I could speak such fluid “french”.
The tail broke off – naturally! – since it was partially draped across the stone and partially across the base! Two neck spines broke off, the tongue broke off (again!). I carefully put the dragon – wing miraculously still intact – into the oven and prayed! While waiting for it to cure I salvaged the clay cover on the base – not without a shard of glass or two in my fingers! Found the bits of tail and other than the piece still attached to the base, gave them up as a lost cause! Never did find the tongue or the neck spikes. Grabbing the shark scrap and the pasta machine I quickly managed to fill the clay base and got it cured and painted.
Dragon came out the oven and I discovered that the second wing had cracked after all. I wound up removing the upper section of the wing and rebuilding it. Re-attached the rock to the now painted base and started the re-construction of the tail. Isn’t it lucky I had so much of the orange scrap clay? Redid the neck spines and cured the whole thing. I still hadn’t noticed the missing tongue at this stage.
One intact dragon later, I set it on the table to seal and do the final curing, which is when I noticed the missing tongue and a missing claw. With those in place, Dragon got sealed and popped back in the oven. There is a tiny flaw on the back wing which I will attend to in the morning – now I’m simply enjoying looking at him and wondering how on earth I actually made him and shaking my head in amazement that I finished him despite all the mishaps.
If you want a closer look take a dander at my flickr album.
Hubby is adamant that this fellow will never leave home. Don’t think I could bear to part with him anyway. Aside from that my daughter has laid claim to him – he matches her paprika and denim bedroom! I’m eyeing my collection of rocks and wondering what colour the next one will be. Someone I know collects purple dragons…..
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