The mall has provided a lovely backdrop and stage for the demonstration. To begin, I am doing the neck, shoulders, and chest, to quickly figure out the mass of the front area. The arms will determine the overall look of the animal, whether spindly or massive.

I made the armature “casually”; I did not pre-establish any details, including the overall look. This is a lot more fun for me during the demonstration. It is possible to have everything figured out ahead of time, but that makes me more of a copyist than a sculptor. I like to let the sculpture tell me what it wants. The dialogue allows the work to be a lot more fresh and interesting.

Day 2

Filling out the neck and the other arm. The chest looks like it’s going to be pretty massive, so I thicken the neck and put in a rough head. The head will have to be a lot bigger to balance out the composition!

Day 3

Today I did the head and nothing else. I have found that if you want to have a good sculpture, you have to do the face entirely in one day. All the symmetry, balance, mass, and detail have to be roughed in, all at the same time. The look is pointy with heavy brow ridges and a strong jawline.

The body doesn’t seem like it wants to be delicate. Not an Arabian horse — not Percheron either — but definitely a draft horse.

Day 4

I moved on to the wing and back leg. A demonstration is as much a performance as a sculpture. Each day, I always try to complete something on both the front and the back of the sculpture. Concentrating on either is not interesting to the audience, who like to see the day-to-day advance. At a demonstration I always have a photo board with these daily pictures so folks can see where the sculpture was and is going. The process itself is the show.

Side note: The air conditioning and the lights are drying out the clay faster than expected. I must water every hour or cracking develops.

Day 5

The shoulders are bigger now, and the arms thicker. The neck scales are going in. It is important the audience sees detail going onto the surface; it heightens their expectations.

The armature in the chest is forcing me to broaden the whole piece. The anatomy has to be overly exaggerated so it reads well from a distance. Subtle is out! This makes the work so much more fun to do. There is a wild theatrical nature to this sort of sculpting. It must be dramatic!

The number of people is extraordinary; hundreds are coming by each hour. The people are unbelievably polite, one of the best crowds I have ever worked for. They seem mystified I am not selling something. The mall hired me for two weeks during the holidays simply for an ongoing performance.

Day 6

Back plates today. It is time to establish the silhouette to the hips. To balance out the spikiness of the head, there has to be a similar texture somewhere else on the body.

Quite a lot of people up on the stage with me today. Throughout, I have allowed anyone who wants to, kids included, to come on stage and touch the sculpture. They never leave any damage and are really respectful. I think it is important this is accessible. Part of the whole reason is to show folks it is not that hard and the sculpture is made of relatively simple materials.

Day 7

Moving down the tail and making the throat scales more consistent with the stuff on the spine. One week in and the anatomy is in place. I am on schedule!

Day 8

Worked down to the joint on the tail where I will stop applying the clay. It is important over the next week that some of the armature remains visible to show people it is a work in progress. The exposed tail is a good choice. Covering all the plaster will show so much less.

Funny, more people are impressed that I welded the armature myself than that I work for Weta Workshop.

Also, to fill out the day, I began on the detail scales on the shoulder. The work is heavy, bold, and (quite honestly) cartoonish, but for the audience it reads magnificently. The very gestural line quality keeps the surface fresh and lively.

You can see the head detail is pretty well established; I did all that on the third day. The shoulder is sketched in, but the upper hand is not done. I am having a heck of a time keeping the horns from drying out under the lights. If I were to put in this hand, it too would crack and disintegrate before the final day. The surface area is too big for the small volume of clay in these areas.  It is better to still show the armature and work for a finale.

Day 9

Scales on the neck, arms and the hips. The surface is beginning to show some real glitter.  The rounded volumes now have definition, with the lines drawn in by the presence of the scales.

Now when I come to work, the shop workers all know me. They come by every day to watch. I am now officially the Dragon Lady!

Day 10

Got some interesting patterns on the legs. It is important not to just put ordinary scales all over. There are several distinct types of scales: rosettes (pebble-like round ones), scutes (tall conical horn-like ones), pointed (raised teardrop shapes), heavy plates (over the toes, throat, and the spine), and fused (the squarish ones, like the back of an alligator) These can be small, medium, or large.

The nature of scales means these different textures need to flow and transform, one into another, over the surface. You cannot allow any one type to dominate without moving it along to the next shape. It is a lot like music. I have always imagined the plate scales to be drum beats and the rosettes to be piccolos. Easy to see the rhythm behind these patterns.

Day 11

Chest scales and working on the back.

Day 12

Only one more day to go, so I put on the tail and the upper hand.

Day 13 — final day!

I patched in the final scales and posed with the two people who made the demonstration happen, Monya and Christo Van Wyk from Westfield Mall.

I always left the back side of the sculpture open so that when people came up onto the stage they could discover something surprising. It was so lovely to see people’s faces light up when they saw the cardboard construction inside. It was a sudden “I get it!” that made my day.

I am very happy with the rhythms floating on the surface!

Contact SilkMermaid.com sculptor Kim Graham at kimsculptor (at) gmail (dot) com

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I have begun on the shoulder scales, so the character of the dragon is becoming apparent. This will be a a brightly scaled figure, mostly because it reads better from a distance. Without color, the detail has to be pretty agressive to make up for it.

A good day’s work!

[Click either image to see a much larger photo.]

Visit Kim Graham Studios to see more of the sculptor’s work.

A good day sculpting. The anatomy is nearly established; I am working on balancing the volumes so the legs don’t look too massive or the head too tiny. I started on the spine scales, but they’re not yet pointing quite the right direction.

It’s good to review the pictures at the end of each day. They give me a fresh perspective on the shapes and lines of flow that are hard to see while I’m on the stage.

[Click any image to see a larger photo.]

Contact Kim Graham at kimsculptor (at) gmail (dot) com

The dragon after day 2. I have gotten the other arm and neck on the other side done and begun on the head. This picture shows the wrist is still a bit small and the biceps are dull. I’ll fix these tomorrow.

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The beginning of the Auckland demonstration. As you can see in the background, the mall management really dressed up the stage very nicely, far moreso than I thought possible.

I’m doing this demonstration by myself. I have two weeks, and that can be done pretty easily alone. It’s a shame — it is so much more fun to have people helping out! But if it’s done too quickly, I’ll run out of work.

[Click any image to see a larger photo.]

Visit Kim Graham Studios to see more work by the sculptor.

Kim prepared the mall dragon sculpture’s armature in advance. She writes, “The first picture is the welded steel armature built over a rough cardboard cutout version. There will be about half a ton of clay on this, so it has to be pretty strong. It took two days to build.” [Click the photo for a larger version.]

“This is the plaster and burlap covering that will support the clay. I made it small enough that I can fill out the musculature without hitting the plaster. One day to build.” [Click the photo for a larger version.]

Stay tuned for Kim’s updates on her latest dragon!

Contact SilkMermaid.com sculptor Kim Graham at kimsculptor (at) gmail (dot) com