I definitely liked this task.

My original idea was to make a clock based off of an ink print I made last year of a raven standing next to a pile of organs with an intestine hanging out of its mouth. The clock would have been placed inside a heart, and the heart would be in a pile of organs. But clay is a difficult material. And the heart idea didn't work out. So I decided just to make a raven on a stump instead.

Next I acquired my clock piece. Since it was pre-made, I decided to take it apart completely, paint the insides, then put it back together. That way, the insides had my own little touch added to them.

The raven is made out of clay and painted with watercolors.

Did you know that professional grade watercolors don't generally come in black because the soot used to make it black ruins paintbrushes? Yeah. So I had to improvise to make black. I combined blue and dark brown. And it made an almost black color. If you look really close, it's actually dark dark blue and dark dark green.

I did have my share of pains through this though, beyond the paint. First, people managed to smash the head it. I had to to try to reshape it, but there's still a little bit of a dent in the neck. Then, it took me forever to get the back feathers done so it was really hard to keep body from drying out in between the times I got to work on it. The bird would stick to the stump, and the roots would stick to the stump. I ended up having to glue them on after the painting.

I swear, some higher power was trying to ruin this for me.

But they failed. And my bird turned out pretty cool in my opinion.

I have some photos from when I was making the feathers, but I can't get them for the time being. I'll post them when I get them.