SCHNAUZERS

Amongst all the animals and things which i create out of clay, my favourite and most inspirational pieces must be schnauzers, never mind the weird spelling and the difficulty in finding the letters on the keyboard. And I don't even own a real one.

Schnauzers are clever creatures, according to my internet research. Its origin came from the German word "schnauze," meaning "muzzle". The dog is generally friendly towards people and besides the need to maintain its wiry coat, take care of its eyes, kidneys and other ailments and not overfeeding it (it is known to put on weight quite easily), schnauzers are very good dogs for land-scarce Singapore. They take to apartments rather well and they age very slowly and they will keep you happy for a long, long time. There are a few schnauzer-owners around my vicinity and i like to observe their movements and behaviour - it'll make my sculpture more realistic.

My love affair with the dog began in 2005 when i saw a few pictures off the internet and i did it in a air-dried Japanese white clay (the heavy sort) (picture, above right). I used some armature and i was very satisfied with the texture which i could create with ease. Then i discovered that i could do it rather competently and since then i have a way with schnauzers. It's fate meeting destiny, i guess.

It's the detail that makes the sculpture look good, besides the proper placement of the eyes and nose and the parting of the matted hair, ears, whiskers etc - once any of these is misplaced, then it might look like another breed. As i create dogs, i also come to realise that God is really creative - a tweak in the position here and there and it becomes another breed. Stunning. And really, only God knows how many breeds of dogs there are in this world.

Well, one day when my two boys are old enough, i'll consider getting a nice, well-behaved one.

This cute dog is made from DAS air-dry clay ;-)