There is an unusual perception that everything that I make is great- I have only learned about that today. The thing is, not everything that I clay turns out okay. Sometimes, my pieces gets broken too or, its just that it wasn't really that great. This is the bear that was made from a very bad clay- its too soft and it gets broken easily. I am reluctant to throw it away because, I love bears. So, this is what I did:

Before

Yes. That's a sponge- apparently, my figurine "sheds" tiny clay particles. Don't ask me why. This is the first time that I encountered this.

Removing the protective layer/finishing "touches."

The problem with "baked" pieces, the options are often limited to either chucking the whole thing off or, just creating another concept. That is what I did here. I am not going to show you guys how I did it because I was more occupied on how I could salvage the piece. But this is the "after" part.

The legs are detached from the body so, I had this idea that this bear was very naughty- he played with paint and spilled it all over the place. The thing is, the "splatters" are used to distract anyone from looking closely at the bear- which "sheds" some of its skin. The bottom part where I made the bear sit on the paint hopefully will prevent the legs from separating from the body.

I randomly made things to make it look like that was the intended look I was going for.

If there is anything that the whole experience taught me, its this: do not scrimp on your materials and, whatever you do, make it work!

I probably should take that a little bit farther by doing the same thing with my life.....