Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!

In a high falsetto voice my grandmother used to call her old cat, Leo, with these words. From the time I was little I learned many things from her and one of the earliest was how to call the cat. :-) Little did I think that in later years I'd be sculpting them and spend many an hour designing and sculpting the little enigmatic creatures through the years!

Kitty bead shown with my hand for scale

Fast forward to the present... a kitty bead was on the list of items to sculpt so I tackled it with the usual enthusiasm.

Only now, with the sight gone from one eye, the task is a bit more challenging so after a lot of struggle I decided to sculpt a single bead, have Joe mold it then take several pressings for the final designs.

 

Mold and pressed part

After the first kitty bead was baked a flexible rubber mold was made and the original was removed.


By pressing clay into the mold I made several pressed clay parts that I had planned to modify to create individual beads or expressions. One with a heart to create a 'message' or gender, obvious boy or girl bead.

After a bunch of sketches, the girls and hearts were easy, but the boy bead was a super challenge. How do you make a sweet kitten into a little guy? After viewing a bunch of images the dapper guy began to take shape.

Dapper Kitty sculpt created in colored clay

With a crisp collar, a snappy bow tie, hat with a hat band to match the bow tie texture and a very, very tiny fish on the hat band the little dapper kitty was finished.


He is baked and needs a bit of touch up before molding but, with the toughest character done, it will be downhill all the way now.

Just for fun I added color to the sculpt with a layer of color in photoshop.

This sculpt is just under 1 1/8 inch tall.

by Penni Jo

creator and designer of 

Best Flexible Molds