Layl's Silly Milly Art

Layl McDill Polymer Clay Sculpture Gallery

Ape’s House

Created Winter 2011

Inspiration: Probably about a year ago I had a dream about a odd house and then did a sketch in my sketchbook.  It was sort of the same as this house with the two levels and but I changed it a lot as I created.  Now it is sort of a mixture of several houses from dreams.  I tend to dream about stairways a lot too so this made sense to add in.  At first the top was going to be a kitchen but then I decided the part of the kitchen I really wanted to make was the cupboards so I made it all cupboards with little treasures inside (they actually open on real hinges).  The little characters that are hanging down below were the last finishing touch that happened about a month after I thought I might be done with the piece.  I had several people tell me the downstairs area looked like it needed something.  Finally an art consultant was picking up one of my pieces and she said I should make characters that hang down below so you could bring them up and "play" with them in the space above.  I loved it!  So I made a hedgehog, a cat and a dog. 

Technique:  This was an extremely tricky piece to figure out how to make because I didn't build it around an armature like I usually do.  I built it in parts- mostly slabs that I put together with Apoxy Sculpt.  I felt like a crazy architect building this.  The grass on the left side took about 8 hours to "plant" each piece is put in individually- along with the flowers.  Most of the colors and details you see are done in millefiore but I also used the transfer technique for the cupboards.  I scanned in some of my sketches and resized them to fit on the cupboards.  The cupboards have metal hinges that are embedded in the clay.

 

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