September 16, 2012

What have I done this week?  To be honest, I’ve been lazy again.  Work has been stressful since there are too many people who decide which one of us does what.  We also had a room inspection of my main space and I had to move my stuff and then help clean up after the rest of the girls who had to move as well.  By the time I got done, I was in a very lazy mood, which is no excuse for not working.  I did enjoy working with some clay this week.  I decided that while waiting to get a convection oven to bake my polymer clay that I would practice on regular children’s clay bought at my local toy store.  It’s designed to not dry out too quickly, unlike the Japanese modeling clay I’ve been using.  This way I can get more comfortable working with clay before making permanent items I’m not so proud of.  My mermaid was pretty good for a first time project in clay and acrylic paint but it would have been better if I had thought to use children’s clay to practice on first.  I created a small dragon to try out the clay with the image in my mind.  I was hoping for a perfect sculpture of a dragon about to fly.  Instead I found the clay too heavy to support that and created a cute thing with a long tail, diamond eyes cut into the face and wings barely attached.  However, it is obviously a dragon and I got ideas on how to create the basic body of a dragon for my next attempt.  I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m getting there.

I also finished my two part blog post on General Halleck, the man Lincoln called “little more than a glorified clerk.”  I was surprised that while he was a weak General-in-Chief to the Union, his time as the first Chief of Staff of the Army is credited with being a huge part of Grant’s victory.  Halleck worked as a translator between Lincoln and Grant as well as being Grant’s voice in DC while Grant was on the field.  Halleck’s ability to supply the variuos armies of the Union allowed the Union to wear down the Confederacy which couldn’t supply their troops very well as the war continued.  I also looked into my next post which will be about the riot in Baltimore in 1861 and it looks interesting.

I hope you have a delightful week and I’ll write again next weekend.  May God bless you all this week.