I got the idea when I was making a snowman in January. I noticed, when balling up a pile of snow for the snowman’s head, that I could see a kind of face already emerging from the lumps. Instead of making a usual snowman face with a carrot nose and so on, I chipped at the ball of snow until the face I’d seen inside and beneath the chunks of snow emerged. I was pretty pleased.
In the following weeks I kept thinking about that experience and began to wonder if I could do the same thing with clay. I went to the local hobby shop and got some air-dry clay and a few other things and gave it a shot. The results are above. Michelangelo it ain’t, but it makes me smile.
I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly artistic person, and don’t think I’ll ever make a living selling busts of little aliens, but I’m having a good time doing it — and isn’t that the point in the first place?