Dragon Ashtray

My sister asked me for a decorated ashtray for her birthday. So I had a think and decided that I should start with an actual ashtray and build around it with clay so the inside of the ashtray would still be easy to clean. At a store I found simple glass and stainless steal ashtrays, both ovenproof, and figured the glass one would be best as the clay can be seen through it. My idea was to cover the ashtray with a clayblend of different colours and it would be nice to see as much of that as possible (at least until it's filled with ash and stinky fags ).

I used a mix of gold, copper, dark mother-of-pearl green and a bit of silver and white, as I knew from experience this would create a nice blend. The part that would be against the glass I adorned with little pieces gold metal-leaf for extra shimmer.

Of course I also wanted to add a little dragon (I figured that's one critter that won't mind smoke ) for which I used a semi-transparant white with a bit of of the previous used colors. Once baked it had an nice agath-like effect. It has hematite beads for eyes and 3 pearls on its back for embellishments.

I also added some dark green leaves here and there with dark yellow roses. For a final touch I dusted the lot with a little bit of gold coloured mica powder. After baking I decided not to varnish it, so the ashtray can safely be rinsed with water (polymere clay in itself is waterresistent but the varnish tends to flake I've found). Excluding baking time it took me about 3 hours to make it, I decided to time myself

I'm pretty happy with the end result. I'm not a smoker myself but perhaps a glass bowl could be a personal future project? Either way, my sister was very happy with her present. All she said was 'an ashtray with that clay stuff you work with', I had total freedom so she was very curious what I would come up with.