Meet Solana, #29 in my year-long series of polymer clay dragon sculptures. This week’s dragon was really fun to do, I used several different techniques I’ve been playing with lately: wire wrapping for the wings, shaping wire coils for the spines and metal forming.
A couple weekends ago I was playing with soldering and forming sheets of copper, and I found a little leftover bit that got trimmed and textured into a shape to be the tip of his tail. Rather different and cool, I thought. 🙂
Click on any of the photos for a closer look.
If you’d like to keep up with my dragon creations this year, I’ve made a Thursday’s Dragon Pinterest board just for them.
There were two photos on the internet that inspired this dragon. The first inspiration was this pair of earrings by Rebekah Payne at Tree Wings Studio. I love the the spiral stamped texture and the dots.
The second inspiration was these wire wings by Natural Jewels. (Click on either of the photos to go to the creators’ sites.)
It’s never my plan to exactly copy an idea, instead I always want to take it and make it my own.
For the wings I sketched out my own design, then added in the beads and crystals. I love the interest those details bring.
Solana even has wire talons!
The box is just a simple little cardboard box covered with clay and textured with leather-working stamps. The addition of the Swarovski crystals ties it all together.
To learn why I’m making a dragon every week check out this post on Errol, dragon #1, for the details.
Oh, I love the copper and turquoise, too. Great details–the spirals are an Indian motif as well, you know.
Spirals are a very common motif, there’s just something about them that’s interesting.