Ready to Sculpt

This year, my birthday gift from my mom (via the check she sent) was an online class on sculpting. (The polymer clay class here: https://verdantsculpts.thinkific.com/courses/polymer.)

I've never done any sculpting, and I'm not particularly good at any visual art, but what the heck, I've got #5 self-confidence, so sure, this is totally something I can do. (To be fair, the description does say the course is suitable for beginners, so I didn't just do my usual thing of skipping all the boring pre-requisites in order to fail spectacularly.)

This is how far I've gotten:

Guido was helping with the photo shoot. And by helping, I mean he refused to get out of the way. I fully expect the same level of help when I open the packages.

The instructor suggests watching all the videos first before starting, and for once, I'm following directions. This has been the progression so far:

1. Him: I'm not great at drawing, so I find a picture of the animal I'm going to do and start by tracing the shape at the finished size using tracing paper.
   Me: Holy cow, I can probably do this!
   
   
2. Him: Then I draw lines for the armature.
   Me: Still on board!
   
   
3. Him: Then I twist the wire into shape.
   Me: I think I can do that.
   
   
4. Him: Then I add a layer of epoxy clay to stiffen the armature.
   Me: Okay.
   
   
5. Him: Then I start building it up using Sculpey.
   Me: ... How did it suddenly start looking like a real animal? (I'm betting this is where mine completely goes off the rails.)
   
   
6. Him: And now I start adding details.
   Me: Holy cow. This is fun to watch. Mine will never end up like that, but this is really cool!

Anyhow, assuming the first four steps aren't harder than they look (which... they might be), I should get to step five before I create a horrific monster instead of the cute sculpture I'd intended.

I still have a couple more videos to watch before I begin, but this will be fun. And memorable, though possibly not in a good way.

Obligatory Picture

I do like all the leaves and berries falling from trees right now, even if they do make it harder to walk the dog.