Description
Inspiration for my Harvest Mouse
This little mouse had a rather troublesome start to life. My loyal customer, and now very good friend Nicky, asked if I would do a harvest mouse on an ear of corn as a necklace. I got most of the way through modelling the mouse before I realized that I couldn’t work out how to make the necklace without it being very heavy. So I stalled… and my poor little mouse went into my Box of Shame.
She might have been out of sight, but she definitely wasn’t out of mind as customers continually asked after her and coaxed me to finish her. So finally, 6 years later, I got her out again and gave her that long curly tail and feet that she had so long been missing.
Happy ending? Not quite. Wax model finished, I carefully packed her into a well padded box and sent her to my foundry to be cast. I send lots of very delicate things by post and, the vast majority of the time, they have arrived in surprisingly good shape. Sadly not for the little mouse. She arrived in pieces, with her nose sheared off, tail in pieces and tiny toes missing. But after a bit of too-ing and fro-ing with my casters, the result was thankfully very satisfying.
Once she was finished as an ornament, Lia – an enthusiastic customer who initiated my hedgehog ring – asked if I would make her into a ring. After a bit of thought and some tricky modelling, my mouse ring was born.
