Finished African Man and Pick Up of Two More Finished Items

This morning I had the day off, so finished the African man which I started last night.  Here are both the smaller one, which seems to be saying "Come" (although not too friendly about it), and the larger one, who seems to be saying "Why?" or "Why Lord?"  Both are wearing the African robe which I believe is called a boubou or bubu :

And a closeup of the larger one, before I added his hands :

It's funny, but it ends up I had a lot of beginner's luck on the first one.  This second one, I had a number of problems with getting the body stood up, the cardboard I had prepared was too stiff to manipulate, and the end a bit sharp, so he ended up tearing along the top edge, and I needed to add more clay inside/underneath to reinforce him, and then re-stamped some of the stamp patterns.  I think he'll be okay, but there were some challenging moments.

I wasn't able to attend the open workshop, which opened again today (just for July, as Shadbolt will be closed again in August), but I passed by to pick up some of my work from the previous term.  In particular, this big tree stump which was to be the base for one of my totems :

It is built from iron-rich yellow clay, and then some iron oxide was brushed on it as well, to highlight the texture.  I couldn't wait to get out tonight to add it to my totem, which has been standing on an overturned clay pot since last year :

It turned out that the ants have fully inhabited the bottom few pots in the totem, so to minimize disturbance of their nest, I left the overturned pot, and just added the tree stump over top:

I think it looks complete now.  I'm glad.  I had plans for a third totem, but only a couple of pieces finished, so it may not be assembled until next summer.  I don't want to rush it in the next couple of weeks, I have so many projects already on the go.

Funny thing, I had made a weird little lady sculpture back in March (see this post), and she had gone missing.  I had looked for her several times, and asked my instructor about her.  When I stopped by the kiln shed today, there she was, sitting on a shelf of forgotten items.  So I don't know where she was hiding all this time, but I'm sort of glad she's back (although she adds to my list of unfinished projects).

Oh, and the other item I picked up today was one of my early twisty pots, which has been in a student display at Shadbolt.  Now it's in my hand (i.e. on my shelves).

It was also created from the yellow clay which I enjoy so much, and highlighted with iron oxide, and then finished with Gerstley Borate, and glazed with Amber Celadon inside.  An intriguing and somber looking vessel.  Very rough and earthy.