Bird Model: Great Blue Heron

This listing is for one Great Blue Heron bird model. It is made of stoneware ceramic, nichrome wire (kiln wire) and glazed with various colours of underglaze as well as coloured and clear glaze. As you can see it is a very delicate item, so it should be treated care!

Note: the colour of the wire legs are kind of patchy gray/black (the wire turns from silver/gray to black in the final firing but its not completely), also there are a few tiny pinholes in the glaze on the neck of the bird!

The Great Blue Heron is my favourite bird, I often spot them flying over head during morning/evening walks or standing near rivers/creeks near my home. I sometimes even see them flying over the neighborhood from my studio! I'm so pleased to finally intersect my love for birds and ceramics!

I have workshopped the firing method of these little bird models over the last year, the main issue is that the fine wire legs are not able to support the weight of the body while in the hottest part of the glaze firing in the kiln, so the birds would keep slumping over! And using thicker wires really doesn't have the same delicate effect as a finer wire. This led me to insert a wire hook into the base (the lump of clay the bird is standing on) and hang it upside down in the kiln (on a rig) so that it keeps the bird nice and straight while firing. I then cut off that wire loop from the bottom of the bird model (that's why you can see 2 small wire dots at the bottom of the base!)

note: this is a handmade product and like any handmade product small imperfections and variations are a normal part of the process/final product!