The clay relief deer features sparkling eyes and has an impressive pair of deer horns reaching out of the frame. [Photo/qz123.com]

Clay artwork made by a Quzhou girl received a gold award at the Ninth Arts and Crafts Fair held recently in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang province.

The clay relief deer features sparkling eyes and sports a pair of horns. Its creator rendered her work with a fine textured head and neck, and added vivid flowers around the deer.

Xu Xia, the creator, who loved painting when she was a child, is an art teacher at a local school.

She admitted to being surprised at winning, having only taken up sculpting in clay last October.

"I modified the work three times to get it to what it looks like now," Xu said.

Xu described her technique, saying at first she sketched out the animal on a drawing board and then stuck clay to it, layer by layer. After building up three layers of clay, Xu left it in the studio for drying.

"The pair of horn looks quite natural, don't it?" said the creator. "However, my first attempt was not so pretty."

Initially she fabricated a deer horn shape with an iron wire and then covered it with clay, but it didn't look right.

Xu tried again, looking at real-life pictures of deer to give her the inspiration to make her deer horns look authentic.

The surface of deer horns is quite smooth and even reflects light. According to Xu, the smoother the surface of a clay relief work is, the more difficult it is to work with.

She explained that with clay it's easy to have appear bubbles and wrinkles appear. To avoid this, the clay must be kneaded over and over again to make its texture more delicate.

Xu Xia, creator of the gold award-winning clay relief deer, starts learning how to make clay flowers a month ago. [Photo/qz123.com]