lily mc guinness K00268097

I made this project as a statement piece against ox hunting.

My snapshot was a instagram post made my an anti-fox-hunting group on instagram. I found it quite upsetting how in this day and age people are still killing our precious wildlife, and worse it’s for “fun”.

I decided to make a “swap the roles” piece, by making the fox a hunter, and the human prey.

I bulked my fox with felt, by wrapping it around until I got the right size.

I then painted it and started needle felting the fur.

^^ Progress photos ^^

Finished fox,

This is my plan for the the foxhounds,

Halfway finished pieces.

Reference photos of an English foxhound.

I wanted to make a small pack of English fox hounds for my project. I started with the sketches, making sure to get the anatomy correct.

I then started sculpting my dogs torso.

Instead of sculpting multiple foxhounds from scratch I decided it would be smarter to make a press mould using the only torso I made.

Making of the cast.

I filled the horse up with tissue paper to keep the back from collapsing.

I made the limbs by rolling out clay and using slip to attach it to the body. I then shape the legs while they are on it.

I made sure to put in some air holes so prevent explosions in the kiln. I made 3 just to be safe.

I made a clay block for my horse to rest on while I work on it.

360° of horse.

Fired horse.

Finished horse on landscape.

I was inspired by one of the ceramic horses from the Tang Dynasty. I wanted to make my horses pose similar to the one below.

I sketched out my horse as a size reference.

I started off with the head, holding it against my sketch often to get the right size.

Originally I was going to make the fox with ceramic clay, but I didn’t like the texture and it wasn’t easy to create something small with this type of clay.

I began working with polymer clay. It was way easier to work with, and is much sturdier than normal clay.

I didn’t finish this fox because I wanted to improve the form of the head. I made the ears way to big and the snout started bending while it was baking.

( get inspiration for your project from an online source, like an instagram post, also use other materials, rather than just clay )

I’ve been seeing a lot of anti hunting posts online recently, so I wanted to base my project on fox hunting.

I am anti hunting, so I want to show that in my piece. I want to swap roles of both the defenceless prey and the hunter.

Below is my first concept sketch, of the fox sitting on the horse.

I painted the mountains and added clouds because I wanted to replicate the top of a mountain range with fog just below the tips.

I stuck the batteries for the fairy lights underneath her platform. It is hidden with clouds and is very easy to swap batteries and use the switch.

My final piece,

Difference between lights on and lights off.

I am very happy with this piece, although I couldn’t find a effective way of making raindrops.

Earlier this week I painted my sculpture, got a stand made and my cotton balls dyed, so I was ready to finish the piece.

The cotton balls dried out a little hard, but it’s noting a little teasing can’t fix. I bought small bulb fairy lights in penny’s, to add a lightning finish in the clouds, to give my piece stormy vibes.

I was very happy with the outcome, so I started glueing.

I glued on small sections of the fluff with a glue gun, glued a bulb on the fluff and to finish it off I added more fluff to cover the wire.

To my surprise the wire actually helped keep the cotton stiff. This kept the cloud from being flimsy, so I could make the cloud voluminous and wide.

I sculpted mountains with clay, and got help from the technicians to cut the wood.

‘Wind’,

I made this piece to represent the movement of clouds through wind. It is acrylic paint on wood.

Painting progress

🌬☁️

It’s more blue in person, I’ll take better photographs tomorrow 🌬