birdietam

Evolution of a snake

Added 2025-01-16 08:17:17 +0000 UTC

Lunar New Year has always been a big part of my culture and childhood, and this year we go from the Dragon to the Year of the Snake (蛇年).

I don't have much experience drawing reptiles, so this was really a challenge for me to make a design that was both cute and also easy to use with my ceramic process.

But I think I've finally settled on something! On the more "finalized" page of sketches, the bottom three snakes are the top 3 contenders, with the one in the middle most likely to get made.

While I'd love to make the one with the intricate flower details, I'm not really sure I could achieve that on clay 🫠 However, I will of course still give it a try.

I'd also like to find a good red glaze to pair with this design, but red is also one of the hardest colors to achieve in Ceramic glaze using oxidation. So this will be a long term goal for the year :')

I never really planned to make every Chinese zodiac, but it's now become a tradition to a new design for each Lunar New Year, which will eventually become a 12 year long project to get through them all 😂