The most wonderful thing about New Zealand is the easy access to the most stunning scenery. I’m part of the Milton Rotary Tramping/ Otago Youth Adventure tramps and we organize and lead tramps in the wonderful South Island, New Zealand. It’s a great crew to be associated with and an important part of my life. Getting out into nature is only a part of it, there’s the connections and friendships that form when travelling with a group. It takes a few days to get back to this world again when I’m back, I always feel invigorated with a sprinkling of ‘fairy dust’ that takes a bit to wear off.

The different landscapes make me think of my artist friends. It’s everything, the big vistas that make me wish I was a landscape painter like Lorna Allan, the moss-covered tree trunks and secretive leaf-lined paths remind me of Sarah Freiburger’s paintings filled with the stillness of our native forests. I’m inspired by simply breathing in the beauty, though I do like a good moss-covered tree stump that fires up my imagination!

I have had a couple of projects that have been waiting for me to finish my wanderings, but hey, it’s that time of year when nature calls!

One is this ‘Warrior Queen’ idea. My ‘Raspberry Parfait’ sculpture went off to a new home at the Wellington Art Show, and I had a request for a figurine with a ‘Warrior Queen’ vibe to go with it. Great idea, I thought, so I began playing around with the idea. Not too human, I thought, needs to be a little alien-looking to match the sculpture, but clearly queenly and female……

Now, I have discovered that the best way to play with an idea is to simply make lots and lots. The scale was a little tricky, it needed to be small enough to stand in the structure on the back, higher than the tallest part and big enough to get the detail I wanted.

I used a sculpture I had that was similar in size to get the scale right.

I also liked the idea of her being freestanding so she could potentially stand beside the work if desired. I didn’t want her holding a weapon as such, but I felt a staff or scepter would represent that queenly authority while also stabilizing the sculpture.

I used Nara air-dry clay rather than oven-bake polymer clay as I wanted the flexibility of fine detail without risk of chipping and breaking. This project did show up some technical difficulties working in this size and detail with this clay. It does dry quickly, which didn’t give me as much time working on detail as I would have liked.

The hardest part was the face, getting the right look, I tried several different versions.

I ended up making about 10, some rejected before painting as too small, too clumsy, too animal-like, and one with enormous breasts which made it too top-heavy (booby vibe). One was rejected after painting and decorating as somehow the nose ended up looking like a snout giving a strong ‘Pig Queen’ vibe.

It’s intriguing how inspiration comes in, through what you see, read, feel or sometimes when someone says could you….

I think there’s more gold to find in this idea, maybe a play with a different clay that will give me the time to spend on the details, particularly the hand and face modelling. Certainly, this venture into character building could lead into something very interesting. I’ll stack it in the filing drawer next to the Raven I want to make (it’s looking like a very busy winter workload!)

But first I have to go adventuring again…..

Wanderings and warrior queens

The Wellington Art Show 2026