Post #657509 by danlovestikis on Fri, Nov 2, 2012 2:16 AM

Thank you MadDogMike and Tiki Ano. It's fun doing something that needs some building experience with both clay and bricks. My mom was an expert brick layer.
Here she is in my childhood backyard which she built with my dad as her helper. She not only built an 8000 brick wall she put in the flagstone, beamed roof and built the furniture she is lying on. What I do is something small my mom built big!

When we moved from this home the wall was being pushed over by a neighbors tree so we tore it down and took it to the next home where she covered the front of the house with the brick. She was only 4'10" and a powerhouse.

Progress Report Wish List #3:

The wish of Philot...

The Mayan Temple is finished.To stop it from cracking I dug out the excess clay.

This shows how much I was able to remove. I've learned that it will always crack if the walls are not the same thickness.

I added some more brick lines.

If only I was as good as my mom. Her bricks were always level. This temple is very old and has been through a lot of earthquakes and storms so its weathered.

Next I've started on the first of the three jaguars that will support the bowl on their backs. I only have this one photo to go by. It's not a perfect jaguar but the Mayan artists rendition of a jaguar.

I scooped out the back where the bowl will sit and started to form the head.

I don't just carve away clay I add it to build cheek bones etc.

From the side it looks one way but from the front another. Because of that I may build and remove over and over again. Here I've added more clay close to the nose.

Once it was formed to a close approximation I used a tool to remove clay inside the head.

Now it has an empty head.

Now I go back to fine tune the head adding clay above the eyes.

Now I've worked on the teeth the photo shows that I need to work on the nostrils.

Photos are a great help. I can see that the long teeth are not as thick as those made in stone. Today I'll go back and add clay. When this one is done I'll make the other two. They will all need hollow bodies which will just be block stones. The bowl will also be blocks.

It's time to sleep a few more hours before the work begins. I woke up and decided to post to get sleepy again. Cheers, Wendy