SRII: Pan's Labrynth Mandrake root
My SRII was inspired by the movie Pan’s Labyrinth. I made the Mandrake root (it also comes out in Harry Potter) and the bowl that Ophelia used to put it under the bed that her sick pregnant mom slept in. I wanted to create this because the Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my most favorite movies of all time (despite me not being able to understand what they are saying without subtitles), and because the mandrake root seemed like a creepy fun thing to make.
While I was debating whether to make or buy the bowl that I put the root it, I eventual decided that I wanted to make it because I could control the size that way (I wasn’t exactly willing to make a big mandrake root if I bought a bowl too big). I wheel threw the bowl and covered that with little vines so that the thinner vines could be part of the root as well as the bowl. I wanted the thinner vines to look like it was engulfing the bowl and taking it over (adding to the creepy effect)
For the actual root, I made a base by cutting limbs from a single piece of clay, and then adding small coils all over to create a root like texture. I made the arms and the legs slightly different lengths so that the baby form wasn’t too obvious (so it looked root-like enough), and made one leg hang over the bowl while the other leg rested on the rim of the bowl.
I went with the big bucket glaze for this project, and I used oil spot (I think?) for the root and a mix of blue rutile and iron lustre for the bowl. I was hoping for a blue brown bowl, but knowing the lack of predictability for those 2 colors, I just hoped that everything would stay on. My bowl ended up being more of a brown than a blue (very little blue) but I’m happy that it turned a slightly darker greener shade than the root itself.
While I was debating whether to make or buy the bowl that I put the root it, I eventual decided that I wanted to make it because I could control the size that way (I wasn’t exactly willing to make a big mandrake root if I bought a bowl too big). I wheel threw the bowl and covered that with little vines so that the thinner vines could be part of the root as well as the bowl. I wanted the thinner vines to look like it was engulfing the bowl and taking it over (adding to the creepy effect)
For the actual root, I made a base by cutting limbs from a single piece of clay, and then adding small coils all over to create a root like texture. I made the arms and the legs slightly different lengths so that the baby form wasn’t too obvious (so it looked root-like enough), and made one leg hang over the bowl while the other leg rested on the rim of the bowl.
I went with the big bucket glaze for this project, and I used oil spot (I think?) for the root and a mix of blue rutile and iron lustre for the bowl. I was hoping for a blue brown bowl, but knowing the lack of predictability for those 2 colors, I just hoped that everything would stay on. My bowl ended up being more of a brown than a blue (very little blue) but I’m happy that it turned a slightly darker greener shade than the root itself.