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The reason I chose a bear is because I'm from California and the California flag has a bear. The bear is on a cracking cliff but he grew a tree.The bear represents being strong but forgetting - more concerned about whats going wrong. The bear is just watching and letting things happen. The cliff means to feel on edge and the cracks means things going down hill. The tree means creating hope/goodness within chaos. As I was finishing the sculpture I also start to see the tree subtly fixing the cracks. This sculpture shows my character developing.

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Forming the month was another challenge because my goal was to have it in a neutral position but I would always end up with a smile or frown. I got the position I wanted much later in the process.

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Here I was happy about the face but then I thought it kinda looked human and I couldn't unsee it. Mr. Stout recommended me to pop the eyeball out more but that motivated me to completely change the look

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Here Mr. Stout recommended me to do a tree, I was hesitant then I realized it would go well with the meaning of the sculpture so I drew it .

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(another view)

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In this day I came after school to work on my project but I was kinda stalling in doing the cracks in my background so I started experimenting with the tools available and I ended up like how the bristles of a tooth brush textured the rock.

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I drew some swirls at the top of tree to make it seem as wind was blowing it. There is no meaning behind it I just thought it looked pretty. I also fixed the bears mouth and altered its eyes

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I did the cracks in the background during lunch and just went for it after Mr. Stout taught me how to do them

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I like this facial expression better than the previous one. Its not neutral, happy or sad, the best word to describe it inexplicable

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This is where I decided I was happy with it. The only change I made is I got rid of the wind and smoothed the cracks to make it look less sever and harsh.

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I was outlining the bear so I would know where add slip. Here I already outlined the rock and slipped and scored it. By now I knew what I wanted to do and was excited for it.

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After outlining it I put the slip first on the base and not enough on the bear. Then I added as much slip i would fit through the crevices of the bear because it had already stared to stick and couldn't take it off to add slip the right way. I was worried because I thought it wouldn't be strong enough to support long term.

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I had already stuck the bear on the base and started to poke holes through its head also I made a thin cylinder shape support system for the inside of the bear's body so it doesn't cave in during the heating. I made also made the mistake of not taking a picture of the cylinder and the holes through the bears head. This is the picture if me realizing that once i had already slipped and scored and covered the holes with a wet brush

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I also poked holes through the belly, it has some indents. Then I smoothed out the bear and the rock. I included texture to the bear with a yellow sponge because I thought it looked great, I did the same with the rock but i added more pressure

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Here I stared t make the bears face. I changed the nose shape, started adding brows, the eyeballs and I started to scrape some areas of the face to make it more realistic

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Somewhere during the sculpting process my decision to make the bears facial expression to neutral change to confused/sad. It was a big struggle because i made many attempts and started all over many times yet I wasn't getting it.  Then I got the facial expression I wanted when I came in after school

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I was happy about the face, I thought it looked cute but the nose gave me a hard time to truly love it, I thought it was too big and unrealistic

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I shaved the nose down I was starting to like it again

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This is where I slipped and scored my base and slaps together after measuring them, flatting them, and cutting them. This took the longest though it was the easiest part of the process of building the structure. I overthink things and it happen here, I didn't know where to start even though there were directions how to. Thankfully later I got helped on how to begin the base, measure, and cut.

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Later on I smoothed out the sides and edges of the base. I had extra slabs to which I cut out 4 small squares to serve as a support system for the edges. The reason for that is, my corners of my base might bend due to their length . By putting the squares under it keeps it staying straight

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When the project was explained I was brimming with ideas and during this part of the project I still didn't have a clear view of what i wanted to do, I had many things in mind i just didn't know what to pick. However for sure I wanted to incorporate a bear. Here I started that and just went for it unlike how I was with the base.

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I had the least amount of trouble with sculpting the bear and I had the basic shape of it in fifteen minutes.

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When I got the shape for it, I added layers of clay on some parts of the body to emphasize the bears muscles, bones, stomach, and shoulders.

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I was satisfy with the bears look and proceed to hollow it out. This was around the time I stared to constantly ask Mr. Stout and Mr. O for help, as well as coming in after school and during lunch. I gained confidence in my skill with the short time i took in doing the bear but I was still scared that I will forget to do a vital step for it not to explode in the burner.

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One of my first ideas for this project involved a rock - like from Lion king. This rock formation took less time than the bear. It looks nothing like the reference picture I was using, but I still ended up liking mine

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I messed up in hollowing this rock so much, since its so uneven I kept scraping the wrong areas, it was either too thick or too thin, and I often was scraping until I dug a hole