Ceramics?!?!

Night before last it was finally time to try sculpting with ceramic clay and this is the result.  I definitely learned some things and also have a question to ponder.  I know the piece needs to be hollow, but when to do that?  With this one, I modeled the head and body in one piece, cut the body apart, hollowed it out, and stuck it back together.  It may have been better to add the legs first because I kept squishing the hollow body while I worked on attaching the legs.  But it wasn't too big a problem, and so far so good overall.

As you can see, I like chunky animals.  I suppose she's more of a pony instead of a horse.  In fact, this is Epona, the Celtic goddess.  And her name is the word we derive "pony" from.

Hopefully she will make it through the bisque firing stage and then I've have to decide how to glaze her.  Epona was a white pony, so of course this little sculpture should be white.  But I'd like to have a bit of "color texture" - subtle spots or streaks - so I'll see what I can find.  By the way, Epona is 5" long and 3" tall.  That's just the size she turned out to be.  I wasn't aiming for any particular size.

I found working with the clay very satifstying, and I will definitely do more.