I made this sculpture for my Clay II class. The prompt was to create an illusion out of a clay piece. When I was brainstorming for this assignment, I had the idea of creating a sea monster whose body was partially hidden so that it looked like it was disappearing under the waves, or rather, the surface on which it rested.

Sea monsters are known throughout many myths and legends as destructive forces. I decided to play off that idea and create a fearsome sea monster, the kind that wrecked ships and struck fear into sailors worldwide. I also chose to add the remains of a ship to the monster’s body—just to really show off its aggressive nature.

When researching this monster, I read a lot of seafaring tales. These monsters are often described as having rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth and red eyes. I spent a lot of time trying to capture these kinds of details.

I also added details on the shipwreck, including leftover nails and bolts and barnacles to show that this particular wreck had been pinned to the monster for quite some time.

To begin, I sketched and painted various versions of the monster. A lot of stories describe sea monsters as dragon-like or serpent-like, and I tried to incorporate both of those modalities into my design.

To create this piece, I started with extruding cylindrical clay shapes, which I then molded into different parts of the body. Next, I carved the scales out of a slab of clay and imprinted a jagged texture on it. I sculpted the head out of pinch pots. Once I’d assembled the base pieces, I began the detail work: the eyes, the belly texture, the teeth, and the tail fin. After bisque firing it, I applied an underglaze and then a glaze overtop of that.