Making Lots of Ceramic Animal Sculptures

 I've been getting a lot of orders for my large (to me) ceramic animal sculptures lately, and it's been quite a tough go, but I'm getting through them slowly.  

Generally, I can work at a pretty good pace and get a couple done a week, but now, due to a recent hand injury, I'm moving much, much more slowly.  I am a right-handed person generally, but when I sculpt, for some reason, my left hand is dominant.  Unfortunately, the flexor tendon for my thumb in my left wrist just snapped recently, and now I cannot bend my left thumb.  I had no idea how vexing and how incapacitating such an injury could be.  And, unfortunately, because I live in a small town, I guess, the medical community are dragging their feet getting me set up for surgery.  In the meantime, I'm trying my best to get these sculptures done, albeit slowly, because after the surgery, I won't be able to use my left hand for at least a couple of months.  

I have a few that I had already completed before the injury, and I'll post photos of them in a day or two.  Some of the ones I'm building now, I'll show them in their in-progress stages.

A few paintings I've finished over the past year:

 I've been promising to post a few of the paintings I've done this past year, and here are a few for now:  

This is one I did for my granddaughter.  He's her horse, and his name is Val (short for Valentino because he came into her life on Valentine's Day).  He's about as goofy as he appears to be in the painting but really a very, very sweet horse.  Obviously, the original painting is not for sale.

This is a custom painting of a really beautiful dog named Ruby that I painted recently.    Her mom loved the painting, and I enjoyed painting her.

This is a painting of Cooper that I did for a very long-time customer.  He's an Australian labradoodle.  Again, it was a pleasure to paint him, and I'm so happy that his parents loved the painting.

And finally, this is another custom painting named --- I'm sorry!  I'm drawing a blank.  It'll come to me later.  She's obviously a golden retriever and she loves her little blue guy.  I really enjoyed painting her -- and her little blue toy, too.

This is all for now.  I'll add some more later on.  But now work calls again, so I better get back to it.