a father's love

EDIT: this little pendant is now up for sale on etsy

On Saturday the missing cap finally arrived so I was able to (almost) finish up this little pendant! As in my “dreams of growing up” pendant I would like to finish it up by putting the title on the base, but I’m not quite happy with the title as such, so this will be left unfinished till I figure a good one out. At the moment it’s “Warmed by love” but I feel it’s not quite there yet... (Might go for “a father’s love” but i’m not quite sure of that either... any input?)

Inspirationwise this piece was very random. I saw a picture of penguins on my instagram-feed (I believe the national geographics one) and promptly decided to make them. Emperor Penguins are gorgeous creatures and the hatching phase and the raising of the young is really very interesting.  They are a perfect example for how fragile life really is. In these surroundings the little penguin chick basically dies once it leaves the warmth of the father’s body so raising one to adulthood sounds like really quite the task. I also really love how fluffy and cute the chicks are compared to the subtle elegance of the grown up animals.

As the sketch this little one is made from polymer clay (specifically fimo) and then painted with acrylics. As mentioned before the first attempt came out a little too big and I had to start over again. I really liked that process though, as with the first sculpt I could try out different textures and painting techniques to see the effect it reached and then could decide whether or not I wanted to do tht in the final piece. The (slightly askew) base is made from scrunched up tissue with wood glue, snow flakes and a tad of glitter. Doesn’t sound very poetic, I know, but I really like the overall effect! It looks like very smooth snow with just a touch of ice! The pendant measure 18x32mm.