The Seahorse (and the Hare) #3

Last week, I discussed expression with the Hare...carrying that theme along into the Seahorse with its expression and positioning.

Harry & Seahorse-Wind in my Hare©: Leslie Molen

Photography©: Mark Mortensen

Working photos by Leslie

Consistency

The Hare was created with a stone-clay head covered with stretch velvet and sewn body. I like to keep the consistency of both pieces the same- congruent.

Color and Design

My initial concept was to have the seahorse in blue- as in the sea...ocean. I pulled out my dupioni silk in my blues and it just was not quite there...put the fabric to the side on hold.

I looked up a seahorse and found this image in beautiful shades of greens and yellows...

These colors just spoke to me, I kept pulling out the blues...but the greens and yellows was were my heart was telling me to go. Gotta listen to your gut.

Now to understand the anatomy. I believe that it is very important to have a good foundation of knowledge of the anatomy of whatever you are making and then you can jump off into your own personal style.

Next was to continue with the consistency and so I sculpted the seahorse head and trunk from stone-clay. I know! Looks a little rustic right now!

My sculpt needed to dry and then a light sanding prepping it for an overlay of silk dupioni.

When sculpting for an overlay of fabric, you need to make some of the features a bit more exaggerated to make up for the fabric thickness.

I next sewed the tail in the green dupioni which is stuffed and armatured with the extra fabric at the top of the tail that I ran that up the back and into the horizontal and vertical grooves that I made in the clay.

Then rolling the fabric up over the head and around the "snout" then I applied another overlay of the yellow in the tummy area.

Expression

Next, came the painting of the eyes, which mimicked the surprised look of the Hare. Darkened the interior of the mouth for more depth. OOoh!!

I needlesculpted the tail area to create the ridges. Then, added chalk coloring around the snout and defining the ridges of the body areas. 

The trunk ridge was made from a ribbon that I trimmed off the picot edging and colored it green and tipped it with black.

The delicate fins were made from vintage netting and tipped, again, with black.

 

The tail shape was important to give this seahorse a little bit of spunk..

Finally, nestled into the Hare's hands and position for the complete connection between the two!