"Under the Sea"

Here's the final form of my seascape mural. To see the history of it (original drawing and the story behind it), go to Seascape Mural. To see how it was made, click here Terra Cotta Mural 101.

"Under the Sea" was on display at the Preble County Fine Arts Center May 3-May 20, 2001. They are located at 601 Hillcrest Dr., Eaton Ohio. Phone # is 937-456-3999. Their hours are 1-5, every day but Monday. MANY thanks to Diane Soper, of Sistermaide Woodworking, Lewisburg OH, for making the gorgeous frame out of oak, and for taking this picture!

On May 25, 2001, the mural was taken to its home in the Wolfe School in Monroe NC. Pictured above on your left is teacher Debbie Hartsock, who commissioned the work. That's a rare picture of me on the right (I'm usually the photographer, so there aren't a lot of pictures of me). Photo by John Sappington.

The piece is painted with underglazes, starting with a white layer, since the clay is a reddish-brown which would have dulled the colors. The underglazes gave me the chance to control the colors, mixing them as you would do with paint. I had a basic palette of red, dark blue and medium blue, yellow, "Irish green," white and black to work with. The *fun* thing about working with underglazes is, when you paint the colors on, you don't really know what you're getting, because when they are fired, the colors change dramatically. So when I mixed equal amounts of red and yellow, expecting to get orange for those carrot shaped pieces of coral (which are orange like carrots in real life), they came out a yellowish brown. I have no idea why that happened, but it still looks interesting. The best thing about underglazes is that they don't fill in detail the way regular glazes do, so all the textures I built into this piece are still easy to feel. That aspect was important since this piece was commissioned to be a tactile experience for handicapped children.

The last layer of glaze is a clear glaze, not an underglaze. Two layers of clear glaze were put on to deepen the colors and protect them from wear. The clear glaze is what caused the reflections showing in the picture (the gallery has large windows and there was no way to avoid all the glare). But the glare looks like reflections in the water anyway, so that just adds to the beauty of the piece.

The background is "rippled" like waves of water. The animals and coral are varying heights above the water background to make them more interesting to touch. My idea of the three separate sections was that the viewer is scuba diving, and this is what he sees when he turns different ways -- the dolphin and ray in deep water, the two areas of coral in other directions. Corals come in wildly vibrant colors, with several shades of green, red, orange, yellow, purple, all right next to each other. Fascinating stuff.

The animals shown are:

Left panel: Bottlenose Dolphin, Spotted Eagle Ray

Center Panel: Sailfish; Sea Turtle; Bigeye (three red fish); Rock Beauty (large black and yellow fish); Fairy Basslet (purple and yellow fish); Seahorses; Starfish; Moray Eel; Princess Parrotfish; Juvenile Burrfish (the small yellow fish with spots).

Right Panel: Spotfin Butterfly Fish; Blue Tang, Juvenile (with yellow tail); Blue Tang; Redlip Blenny (on top of coral at right); Queen Angelfish (large blue and yellow fish); Spotfin Hogfish (red and yellow); Redband Parrotfish (on right eating coral - Parrotfish eat coral, and divers can hear them crunching it through the water); Smooth Trunkfish, Juvenile (the one the size of a pea, dark with white spots); Brown Goby (in yellow coral); Coney, Golden Phase (yellow with blue spots); Jackknife Fish.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the mural. Thanks for your interest in my work!

Questions? Email me: Lynda@thesculptedhorse.com

Page last modified 7 AUg 2007

Artwork, logo, photos, text are all Copyrighted by Lynda Sappington. All Rights Reserved. The Whimsy Hill Studio Logo is also TRADEMARKED by Whimsy Hill Studio. No copying or reproduction in any manner is allowed without the express permission of the artist.