Nesting

Well it looks like Hera is starting to sit on the nest.  The nest is mostly constructed of strips of 3 X 5 index cards, a few pine needles. I love how Zeus added his bit of flair with some fancy yarn draped over the side. I wasn't sure if they would go for it, but they seemed to like it.  As far as I can tell there is one egg.  I don't want to disturb her so I guess if she laid a second one, I'll get a surprise.  I'd like for it to hatch but the finches I used to have never managed to hatch a single egg.  So I'm not going to get my hopes up too high.
  

I've been working on trying to take better pictures for Etsy.  The light in my room seems to be about the best in the house.  I really like photos that are like a still life and use natural light.  From what I have seen you can have the best stuff, but if the photos look blah, no one even notices it. 

These are my latest little birds "Sweet Tweets" .  They were absolutely amazing to sculpt.  The birds honestly feel really good in my hands when I'm making them.  I used my red clay, which when wet looks almost like soft milk chocolate.  I love the color when it is wet. After firing it is decidedly orange.  I've found it works beautifully with the Mayco Elements  line of glazes. This is surprisingly the stormy blue shade.  The glazes sort of break up and the actual color goes into the crevices. I was hoping it would do something like this, so I'm pretty pleased.  I left the beaks of the birds the natural terracotta color, but I gave them a coat of clear glaze for a bit of shine. I've got one more in the kiln cooling that I used the blue grotto on.  Blue Grotto is a gorgeous shade :

 

It also settles in the recessed areas.  I love this line of glazes, they are super easy to work with.  The colors seem a bit weird in the jars but as long as you remember what you are doing it's not a problem.