Covid 19; Standing Up For Peace Sculpture for Saxon Hall, Hereford: The design Phase. Please join in!
The Big Skill is working on a community project to build a sculpture for the beautiful garden at Saxon Hall Community Centre in Hereford, UK. We had started to bring people together with fun, informative, creative clay workshops to start developing the design. The models people made will be incorporated into the sculpture’s surface to add an expressive, relief surface that tells of the many ways everyone builds peace into their lives and communities. Then Covid 19 took over.
So now we have taken the work online. Please feels very welcome to join in. Go to The Big Skill website for more details.
Clay Modelling and small sculpture.
Using clay on a small scale is a great way to work out those ideas and feeling that are ‘on the tip of your tongue’ or just out of reach in your head. You can play around intuitively until it looks about right. Then you can use that model to guide you through another one where you think about it a bit more and so on. This is the basis of how I work and how I deal with any emotions or situations that in life that I can’t get my head around.
When planning a Public sculpture I start this way to clarify my own interpretations of the Theme. Then I will be inspired again by your models and other art-work and I’ll start making scale models that incorporate your ideas and forms and the issues out-lined in the Project Brief.
Coping with the Covid 19 lock-down has made us all acutely aware of how it feels to live in fear and what really matters and helps. So the models you make will really be from the heart and everyone will be able to relate to them in some way.
Humans are a social species and so it’s very important that we have a wide variety of skills to offer our communities. We are unified by a drive to share and communicate and some of us do that best through wordless routes like art work: making it and connecting through the art we see.
A piece of clay about the size of a tennis ball will keep your model a manageable size that wont keep collapsing or get to thick if you plan to fire it. Just mess about: the ideas will come through your hands. These other posts about small models will be useful: Making Small FiguresHow To Make Animals Listen to music that suits your mood or the mood you are aiming for. I’m making an abstract form because that is my strongest language. The easiest, ‘best’ thing to make is the thing that interests you the most. Take your time and don’t care one bit about what anyone else might think.I’m just trying to capture the movement or flow here, like dancing. Much of the lower part is just there to stop it tipping over.Blow dry just enough to keep it steady, especially lower bits. Don’t over-do it.I’ve defined the form a bit more by cutting bits off and smoothing and compacting the clay with tools. It’s time to add more clay: Break off a small piece with a tool, dab it onto a moist sponge and model it onto your sculpture. Note the cake in that dish has gone.Keep going around in Rotations, developing it in layers. Look at it from all angles. The next 3 images show the point where I’m beginning to get the hang of this model. Bit more of this lower stuff will come off…Note that is is ‘roughed out’. If you spend too much time smoothing it will feel hard to make changes because “you don’t want to spoil it”. And being able to make changes at any point is one of the great benefits of working in clay.I’ve blow dried it a bit more because now I’m going to add on quite a lot more clay. At this stage this piece is effectively the Armature.Dab water on the surface, rub that until it is sticky, then add more clay. I have switched to Porcelain clay which is tricky to work with. It looks a mess now but I will carve that back when I think I have the shape done. It will shrink way more than the Crank clay underneath so after the firing I will have a hard white finish with a lot of cracks in which I will emphasize in black. I’m after a timeless, stone-like finish. Blow-dry the new clay to stiffen a little. Then use tools to compact the clay and clarify your farm. Don’t be tempted to smooth with water.Raise the sculpture up so that you can see it better. I’ve had this fab turntable for eons. But I often use boxes and bits of wood which turn well. It’s very good to be able to sit up comfortably. I used all the tools shown on the board for each task shown over the next set of images.Refine the surfaces in rotations. I like to do a rotation of removing, then a rotation of adding, etc, for a minimum of 5 rotations.Metal, serrated tools like this are AWESOME! But for years I’ve used wooden ones, Ribbon tools, small metal tools.The curved ends of the wooded tool is great for smoothing and compressing clay in the curves and along the edges.Once you have the shape you want Wooden tools blend in the scrape marks for a lovely, lasting smoothness. and crisp edges.Over smoothing a form can kill it dead. some texture brings out the smoothness.With small sculptures you can often see features from all sides at once. They need to interact and relate to each other. You can still play with surprise revelations as the sculpture is turned like you can with large pieces. This form is inspired by my experience of the Covid 19 Lock-down and part of the Edge Series which uses two sides linked by a hole.Ready to dry. This is now covered in the white porcelain. The firing will do most of the finishing. Then I will complete it by rubbing black-iron oxide powder into the cracks. Weather you fire or self-harden your sculpture do plan on applying a colour to finish it. Dry clay, and sometimes fired clay, looks very blah. Don’t judge the piece at that point. Add colour. using layers of thin washes to build up a colour works best. (be careful with water if you have self-hardened or it will disintegrate) Perhaps wax or varnish. I never recommend glazes on ceramic sculpture: they usually hide your nice surface and unless you are experienced with a particular glaze it can go very wrong. Putting the sculpture on a nice base can transform the way it looks.
The key to all sculpture is this:
1- Block out the form: decide the dimensions (height, width, length) including the base.
2- Work in Rotations refining the whole sculpture at each turn (by adding or subtracting in the case of clay).
Working on a Small Scale.
Starting small will allow you to get your head around the issues and get results quickly. You can try making lots of versions of the same idea until you find a style or image that really works for you. If it is authentic to you then other people will be able to relate to it.
Choosing Your Clay
Ideally use a clay with lots of grog in it because it will sag less, crack less, fire better or be stronger as self-hardening clay. Here I used Scarva ES50 Crank, an outstanding sculpture clay.
All Pottery Suppliers online will be happy to recommend clay if you tell them what you want to make. Clays are made from recipes so there are endless kinds. You want a Hand-building clay with fine-medium grog (pre-fired grit). Throwing Clay for the wheel will resent being a sculpture and be hard to handle. Many “Self- Hardening” clays are over-priced and difficult or unpleasant to use.
Bath Potters Supplies are really kind and helpful, have a lovely new website and a great selection of clays and tools for fair prices. Just looking through the site will give you a good idea of what is available. And they are still open and delivering during the Pandemic.
A bag of clay is 12.5 kg. Clay prices vary a lot. Talk to your supplier to get the right clay for the job. £10 shipping usually covers 10-25 kg so tools wont have extra shipping.
Tools
I love CTM for tools: great quality and prices, especially on the serrated metal tools. They sell fab clay too.
You don’t need lots…I have LOTS! You can make your own.
There is good, illustrated, essential advice about handling clay and making joins on the post about Coil Building.
Genuine joins are formed when the chains of platelet-shaped particles from each section of clay inter-lock. Picture a magnified image of tangled hair.
‘Score marks’ do not give the surface ‘tooth’; they allow water into the clay-body. On vertical surfaces they hold the water in place to give it time to sink in and swell the clay so that the clay platelets are able to link with other platelets.
Slip is not ‘glue’, it is clay particles spread out in water and has little strength, especially when it has dried . It is ideal for holding a lot of water in place to give it time to be absorbed to soften the area of leather-hard clay.
Once both edges are softened put the pieces together and slide them back and forth until you feel the edges lock together. Manipulate the softened clay at the join to encourage further integration of those particle-chains and to disturb the straight line of the join; cracks love to zing along a nice straight slip-weakened join during the firing when the pull of shrinking stresses the sculpture. Pack in more clay if needed.
Thicknesses: cracking/breaking.
Generally 3cm is a fair maximum thickness for a well grogged clay if you plan to fire.
How thick the clay can be to fire well depends on the amount of grog (the gritty bits of pre-fired clay ground to specific sized grit/dust that gives improved structure and resilience to your clay), the denseness of your modelling style, drying time and the speed of your firing.
Air bubbles trapped in the clay will expand with the heat. Grog and/or a loose surface will allow the air to seep through the clay. The same is true with water but steam expands fast. If your piece breaks into big bits during the fire it was trapped air and you will be able to see where the bubbles were in the shards. If it blows up into a trillion smithereens it wasn’t properly dry!
Drying:
These small models will dry out in a few days. To stop it drying between sessions wrap tightly in a plastic bag with no holes.
Dry your sculpture slowly or the limbs may crack as they will shrink faster than the rest of the form. A cardboard box placed over the top is ideal to slowly allow moisture to escape.
Finishing: Self-hardened clay will be delicate but last forever so long as it doesn’t get wet.
Firing will make it strong and water-proof.
When it is dry/fired paint/wax/stain the surface : a simple all over bronze colour always looks great.
Place your sculpture on a nice piece of wood or stone and it will look amazing! Seriously!
Now go make another one.
The more you practice more skills you will build up. You will get the fine muscles, the organised thinking, and more challenging, interesting ideas. There is no such thing as Talent. There is Interest, skills, tricks of the trade, good, suitable materials and tools and practice.
Confidence is great but it does not always help tbh. Don’t be meaner to yourself than you would be to someone else. If you hit a block wrap the piece tightly in plastic and come back to it later. Note the first thing you notice when you un-wrap it: that is usually the bit that needs work or is really good.
Getting useful feedback is hard. Cover the piece, say to the person “tell me the first thing you think of” and uncover it. Keep your face neutral! Then ask ” what is the mood? ” or ” what is the model feeling?”
Primary School Pupils making models about memories in Carmarthenshire.
Clay is a fantastic resource for schools. Kids relate to it immediately and it usually engages their attention for surprisingly long periods. The majority of Pupils will learn best when their hands are busy. It is the 3D equivalent of Drawing; it’s not just for arts and crafts; it’s versatility and affordability means it can be used to enhance all sorts of subjects even maths or history. Many children will find expressing and accessing their ideas in 3D much more natural than using 2D and for some it will be much easier than using words.
Making a Zoo complete with 4 toilets, a car park and an over-looking military complex. We worked on this all day, took photos and then squashed it all up. Fantastic fun, lots of skill sharing and teamwork.
Bringing an experienced Ceramic Artist into school is a great idea and will be worth every penny for special projects. But for everyday use the most important skill needed is the one you have; knowing your kids and understanding how they learn best. The clay-skills required are very straight forward.
Plan to recycle the clay at the end of each session just like a superior version of Plasticine.
Apart from special Projects there is no good reason to fire clay-work in Primary School. Firing adds complications to the skills required, storage problems, big costs and lots of extra work for teachers.
If you want your Pupils to benefit from the science and art of firing ceramics bring in a Raku Potter for a day. It will be fantastic fun, massively educational and the ceramics will be gorgeous!
You don’t need all these things to start off. Quality hand-building clay is the most important thing. There are countless different clays designed for different tasks. The wrong clay can make people feel like failures.
CLAY
Until it is fired Clay can easily be recycled endlessly until the end of time.
Bath Potters Supplies are the most helpful, kind supplier I’ve come across and they will give you great advice. Just tell them you want a white (non-staining, easy to clean up) medium grogged (grog gives the clay much better handling qualities and the greater dry strength needed for self-hardening use.) hand-building clay.
Delivery will be about £10 for up to 25kg.
All the ‘Self-hardening’ clays I have ever tried are unpleasant and difficult to use, very expensive and not significantly stronger when dry than a lovely quality hand-building clay.
TOOLS
Tools make all the difference to what you are able to make. Using them develops fine motor and eye-to-hand skills
Wooden Modelling Tools and Ribbon Tools will be the most popular. Ebay always has affordable letter stamps that will be very useful and sometimes good tools.
-Re-usable plastic table-cloth cover if you are worried about scratches on your tables as this clay has small grit in it.
-a few micro-cloths. They are the quickest, easiest cloths for cleaning tables and hands.
-Boards are optional. B&Q will custom-cut a sheet of MDF for you. A board wide enough to fit across a wheel chair is great for some people.
Approx cost, incl. sheet MDF; £60. You don’t need all these items to start off.
Big Join-In Sculptures have a job for everyone and even the smallest contribution is part of something fantastic.
The quality clay is the important item. Clays are made with recipes and therefor there is an infinite number of types of clay, each with particular properties. ES70 is absolutely lovely to use; it feels very nice, it’s not sticky, it doesn’t stain, it’s easy to clean up (on carpet let it dry + brush out), it’s not irritating to sensitive skin and you can eat it! Most importantly it is very easy to use so people get good, rewarding results quickly. Beginners deserve a great material that will reward their bravery for trying something new and give them fab results that will spur them on.
ES70 works very well as a self hardening clay and can be decorated with poster paints once it’s dry.
Plan to recycle all the clay, even if it’s painted or has dried completely. Explain that the clay is expensive so you need to keep it for next time so that they don’t think it’s because you assume they will make rubbish! Pupils are usually perfectly happy to let it go. Often it takes the pressure off to make a ‘product’ and they can relax and enjoy the making part more.
Clayton The Rottweiler has a full set of internal organs including a working bladder! At the end of the session we recycled the clay.
Re-using the Clay
-At the end of a session drop all the clay back in the bag. (lots of pupils will love smashing the work up!)
-Put bag in Bucket
-slowly pour a cup or so of water over the clay in the bag to soften the clay.
-Close bag w/ twisty
-leave over night or longer.
-place bag on floor and step on it a few times to “knead” the clay, turning bag a few times.
-Voila! It is ready for use. You can re-cycle your clay endlessly.
!? Bag goes rock-hard; Allow to dry completely, drop lump on floor to break up, put pieces in bag and recycle
!? Bag goes quite hard; knock holes all over lump. (hammer + screw driver= surprisingly satisfying task!) Return to bag and add water.
!? Bag goes too squishy; Tip clay onto a board and allow to dry until usable. “Knead” a few times over the day (or two) so that it dries evenly.
For larger quantities of clay recycling click here.
Storage
-Always close bag tightly w/ twisty
-Ideally store in a handy frost free place but it doesn’t matter if the clay freezes.
-Ideally have the bucket on wheels as 12.5kg is quite heavy (plant pot wheels – Home-Bargains, £1.99.)
-Have all the kit together for quick access by everyone.
You can see more about the wonderful, 2 year long, Arts Care Gofal Celf Project shown in the pictures here; The Tumble Commission, parts 1-8
It should be so easy to make figures, right? You are one, from the inside out and you see them all the time! But it totally isn’t.
Studying the figure is used to train all kinds of artists exactly because it’s so challenging to what we think we ought to know. The extra skills a painter or sculptor needs to create figures so they can be used expressively are very different from the skills used to get to know people. And through the training we learn all sorts of amazing, beautiful things about how forms merge and flow into each other in nature, how to look objectively and how to understand the tricks and twists of human perception. And that opens doors to all sorts of other knowledge. It’s very rewarding work!
Portrait and Figure skills need a system that cuts across the fact that when an image goes in through your eye-balls your brain grabs it and interprets it according what it already believes. The system helps you relearn and re-interpret what you see in a way useful for making figures. And it breaks up the massive amount of information into manageable sections.
The more you practice these invaluable skills the more you will see improvement in all your artwork, your general concentration and your ability to see. Like a pianist ‘doing scales’ you will build up the small muscles, motor-skills and neural pathways involved in this challenging, rewarding activity.
It is not rocket science and you can do it.
The key to all sculpture is this:
1- Block out the form: decide the dimensions (height, width, length) including the base.
2- Work in rotations refining the whole sculpture at each turn (by adding or subtracting in the case of clay).
Working on a Small Scale.
Starting small will allow you to get your head around the issues and get results quickly.
Ideally use a clay with lots of grog in it because it will sag less, crack less, fire better or be stronger as self-hardening clay. Here I used Scarva ES50 Crank, an outstanding sculpture clay.
All Pottery Suppliers online will be happy to recommend clay if you tell them what you want to make. Clays are made from recipes so there are endless kinds. You want a Hand-building clay with fine-medium grog ( pre-fired grit). Throwing Clay for the wheel will resent being a sculpture and be hard to handle. Many ‘Self- Hardening ‘ clays are over-priced and difficult or unpleasant to use.
Bath Potters Supplies are really kind and helpful, have a lovely new website and a great selection of clays and tools for fair prices. And they are still open and delivering during the Pandemic.
How To Make A figure
Print out an A4 sheet showing both sides of a skeleton. Make your figure the same size as the skeleton so that it is easier to get the proportions just right which will make your figure look great. Get about a tennis ball sized piece of clay. Gently squeeze it into a thick sausage shape.At one end press in a rough head and neck. About half-way down gently squeeze what will be the legs. Already people will see a figure!Flatten it a bit except the head because in our skeleton state, where we all look almost exactly the same, we are wider than deep. Press gently down the sides to block-out the arms.Measuring is the key to getting the proportions right and that will make a world of difference. Without measuring 99% of people will make the head too big, the legs too short, the hands and feet way too small. The tip of the tool marks one point, your finger marks the other: hold this and transfer it to your clay.Now measure the width of the head….Mark the measurements onto your clay head…Cut away the excess clay.Copying from the skeleton cut the arms and legs free.Lay your rough figure over the skeleton and cut away all the excess clay.Use Measuring and sketch the bones in place. This will make your progress quicker and better. Focusing on the placement of the bones is much easier than trying to capture the gentle curves of a specific person. This is still the Blocked-Out form. You have used the Craftsmanship of Portraiture to get everything in it’s key, human-like placeUsing tools, which will be more accurate than fingers and give a better bond and look to the clay, model on small bits of clay to flesh-out the shoulders. Work around the form, adding or subtracting clay to develop the body of the person you are making.Add the depth .Keep checking those measurements because they help so much and will stop you making exasperating mistakes that will distort your figure.A handy trick is to put underwear on there. It will genuinely help you to get the chest, armpits, stomach and hips right because we easily remember and understand what underwear should like.From there note that your elbows fit into your waist, your hands conveniently reach your crotch, and a hand is big enough to cover a face. Using your own body to check things really helps you remember them and to get poses looking natural and expressive. The clay will be drying a bit now so a slight dab onto a damp sponge will moisten clay before you add it, to get a good bond. Never over-do the water or you will end up with mush!Now you’re getting to the bits a skeleton doesn’t have but you will see clearly where they go.You can use photos. The main body features are not too tricky- it’s the areas in between that are difficult. But on this small scale one thing runs reasonably naturally into another. At this point add clothes if you want to. And you can turn the figure over and work on the back. (resting the front on foam is ideal). You are still at the blocking out stage so no details, focus on the main forms. Then you are ready to bend your proportionally good person into an expressive pose. This person is going to sit on a simple, natural shape. I’m making the seat hollow so that it’s not too thick to fire in the kiln. Up to 4cm is ok if your clay is gritty. If you are Self-hardening it, it doesn’t matter at all.The skeleton’s joints tell you where the figure in meant to bend. The bones are the straight bits. Muscles and skin can stretch or bunch up. A very common mistake happens when people bend the figure for sitting. Stand up and put your palms on your hips: now sit. Notice your hands have not changed angle: we sit on the bottom edge of our pelvis . Feel the bones under there. Your buttocks wrap around the pelvis as you sit. The tops of the thighs and stomach may touch.Dab a little water on top of the seat and rub it around until it is sticky. Gently put the figure in place and move it around until the two pieces are stuck together. (There are clear instructions about making joins at the bottom of this post. Very Important Reading!!)You can try different poses. If bits drop off, no probs, join them back on. That’s the beauty of working in clay. You can change any bit at anytime until it’s dry and joins can’t be made any more. When bending bits refer to the skeleton and your own body: note how the bones show close to the skin on a bent elbow or how the calf touches the thigh in a bent leg.This my blocked out pose. Now I will work in rotations adding or subtracting clay to gradually improve the form and increase the emotional expression. Small changes in body language tell different stories. Right now she could laughing at a terrible joke, feeling embarrassed or starting to cry. The story changes a lot with the angle of her back and where the weight seems to be.Taking the pose myself I realize that with a straight back it feels like she must be laughing and that her hand would only just reach her mouth. Act out the emotion and notice what your body does. Aim for despair and fear: the back bends right over. The hand covers the face and goes just into the hair line. The foot touching the floor goes up a bit on the ball of the foot. The knee of the bent leg comes up to add to the enclosed space around the breaking heart. Interestingly shaped negative spaces are formed between the limbs. To hold the foot where you want it, steady the whole sculpture and define the space she is in, add more to the base and fixed on the foot.Fix the hand to the head well. Measure from the Skeleton and work on places that have become distorted. For example the for arm looks way too long: Start at the hip, measure the thigh bone, get the knee right. identify the wrist, get the hand to the right size.Check in the same way, by measuring that this elbow and knee are in the right place. Track problems back to the fixed points in the lower body.Add a temporary support to hold the leg up and blow dry everything a bit to harden it. It’s important to accept that it looks pretty bad at this point! But the key factors are there: the pose, the story, the proportions roughly.Time to go back to the skeleton and get that back sorted.Sketch on the rib cage. Your rib cage is a pretty rigid basket for keeping your favorite squishy bits in so they are safe. So when you bend forward it moves as a whole.Horribly your arms are barely attached to you. Just a little cartilage in the middle at the top front of your rib cage! So one shoulder can be raised higher than the other, arms can go way forward or back and the shoulder blade slides over the ribs. Here one shoulder-blade is back, one is more forward. The buttocks form around the tilted pelvis, no butt-crack in site.Look again at the skeleton and remind yourself that the hips stick out of the side of the pelvis and the thigh bone joins on the there. With these joints clarified you can best measure where the legs start despite the fat and muscle covering them.The shoulder position affect the placing of the elbows and so on. Work on the neck a bit. Improve the look of the seat.Sort out the head shape and try some hair styles.The elbow tucked in there tells of how afraid she is. The foot is too big!!Feel how the shoulder muscles go right up the back of your neck.Feet can be overwhelming. But they have clear sections, sides and an iconic bottom. Take your time.This arm is bent weirdly and has a crack in it: scoop away the whole crack area and replace with moistened clay to the fix the arm. If cracks are smoothed over they will reappear when the sculpture is dry and can’t be fixed.Double check measurements yet again! Work from all angles.At this small scale keep details simple. But don’t be tempted to leave mittens!Small metal tools are awesome for reaching into tricky areas.This stone makes a perfect Temporary Support to reset the knee that had dropped a bit. Work on the hands. Use the same level of detail as every where else or they will look like gloves.Some blow-drying to stiffen every thing up a bit and the stone can go and any dent be touched up.Improve the base. Undercut all around the edge to create a shadow that always looks good and prevents ugly chipping.
Dry your sculpture slowly or the limbs may crack as they will shrink faster than the rest of the form. A cardboard box placed over the top is ideal to slowly allow moisture to escape. Self-hardened this will be delicate but last forever so long as it doesn’t get wet. Firing will make it stronger and water-proof. When it is dry/fired paint/wax/stain the surface : a simple all over bronze colour always looks great.
Quality Joints:
Genuine joins are formed when the chains of platelet-shaped particles from each section of clay inter-lock. Picture a magnified image of tangled hair.
‘Score marks’ do not give the surface ‘tooth’; they allow water into the clay-body. On vertical surfaces they hold the water in place to give it time to sink in and swell the clay so that the clay platelets are able to link with other platelets.
Slip is not ‘glue’, it is clay particles spread out in water and has little strength, especially when it has dried . It is ideal for holding a lot of water in place to give it time to be absorbed to soften the area of leather-hard clay.
Once both edges are softened put the pieces together and move them back and forth until you feel the edges lock together. Manipulate the softened clay at the join to encourage further integration of those particle-chains and to disturb the straight line of the join; cracks love to zing along a nice straight slip-weakened join during the firing when the pull of shrinking stresses the sculpture.
Thicknesses: cracking/breaking.
How thick the clay can be to fire well depends on the amount of grog (the gritty bits of pre-fired clay ground to specific sized grit/dust that gives improved structure and resilience to your clay), the denseness of your modelling style, drying time and the speed of your firing.
Air bubbles trapped in the clay will expand with the heat. Grog and/or a loose surface will allow the air to seep through the clay. The same is true with water but steam expands fast. If your piece breaks into big bits during the fire it was trapped air and you will be able to see where the bubbles were in the shards. If it blows up into a trillion smithereens it wasn’t properly dry!
Drying:
I dry thick sculptures slowly under plastic which I turn inside out ( to avoid condensation pooling) daily for 4 weeks minimum and then 1-2 weeks in a plastic tent with a dehumidifier. A card-board box makes a great, slow, draft-free drying chamber. A long dry allows the water to level out, as water loves to do, and that will enhance the structure of the clay within it’s new sculpture shape. You will get less cracks or distorting in the fire.
I fire very slowly with an 18 degree C rise until 600 degrees C. then onto full power up to the desired temperature.
Generally 3cm is a fair maximum thickness for a well grogged clay.
How To Make a Head looks more closely at Portraiture and you will find it helpful. It talks about human heads but of course is relevant to all heads apart from the handy option of being able to measure with calipers from your own.
We animals are frequently surprisingly similar and identifying those differences can be really difficult. Furriness or our perceptions built around our relationships can confuse the information and make it hard to see. Skinny legs supporting big bodies or building on larger scale where the weight of the clay is a huge issue causes a lot of problems.
This is the same technique I now use for making heads. A simple clay armature supports the weight throughout the build and gives you a central point that you can work outwards from, allowing that most important key to success: making loads of mistakes and fixing them. You get to avoid hollowing out so that you can play around with textures while you are building. And you will be using the process to reorganize the information in your head: there is no better way to do that than hands-on.
The skeleton is a stick-figure with the right proportions (so important when you are being species specific) set out clearly and unambiguously. Fur, muscle shapes changing with the pose and fore-shortening in photos can confuse you leading to sculptures that are a cross between lifeless, amateur taxidermy and stuffed toys.
The key reason making naturalistic forms is so hard is that our perception (the way we take in our knowledge) that we have built up over our lifetime of what shape the thing is, is based around our general experience of that animal. Making a sculpture of that living, moving, person requires going against what ‘feels’ right and using information we are unlikely to have bothered with before. Portraiture has a system to organise the huge quantity of subtle details. Learning this system will broaden your knowledge, and your access to more knowledge, enormously. That’s why the study of Portraiture and Figurative Sculpture is traditionally the bed-rock of making Art.
The more you practice these invaluable skills the more you will see improvement in all your artwork, your general concentration and your ability to see. Like a pianist ‘doing scales’ you will build up the small muscles, motor-skills and neural pathways involved in this challenging, rewarding activity.
It is not rocket science and you can do it.
Because clay shrinks as it dries and is floppy when very wet, a Clay Armature that will support and shrink with the form through the drying and the firing is invaluable. All other types of Armatures must be perfect in shape or they will ruin the sculpture. And they limit your option to change your mind. Most cause disruption because they have to be removed: clay will shrink as it dries and crack around a rigid armature.
Most techniques for building hollow, coiling or slabs, have a strong ‘voice’ of their own and will influence the final look of the piece. They can demand that you harden lower sections before you can build upwards and you are then unable to change them when you later realize they are wrong. This is a real disadvantage irregardless of your skill level. It is better to work solid over a clay armature especially if you are not using a scale-model and hollow out just before finishing touches. It’s not difficult. That technique is detailed here: Working solid and hollowing out.
Working solid is an excellent method. You set aside the ceramic requirement for certain thicknesses in the clay until you are sure you have the best sculpture you can make at that point. The armature holds the weight up. Some areas can be built hollow too. When you essentially have the look you want but just before finishing touches, hollow it out.
The key to all sculpture is this:
1- Block out the form: decide the dimensions (height, width, length) including the base. Your clay armature will do this.
2- Work in rotations refining the whole sculpture at each turn (by adding or subtracting in the case of clay).
Working on a Small Scale.
Starting small will allow you to get your head around the issues and get results quickly.
Ideally use a clay with lots of grog in it because it will sag less, crack less, fire better or be stronger as self-hardening clay. Here I used Scarva ES50 Crank, an outstanding sculpture clay.
All Pottery Suppliers Online will be happy to recommend clay if you tell them what you want to make. Clays are made from recipes so there are endless kinds. You want a Hand-building clay with fine-medium grog ( pre-fired grit). Throwing Clay for the wheel will resent being an animal and be hard to handle. Many ‘Self- Hardening ‘ clays are over-priced and difficult or unpleasant to use.
Print your chosen animals skeleton to A4 or less size. This is half an A4 sheet. It gives you your height and length for this small sculpture. At this size my horse wont get to thick to fire: my clay has a lot of grog (gritty bits) so I will get away with the sculpture being 4-5 cm thick if it’s fired slowly.Measure the distance between the feet and make a slab-base 1-2cm thick. Guess the width. This base will hold the legs steady until you are sure where to put the pose.Lay clay over the skeleton diagram to copy the basic shape and sizes.Cut between the legs. make a Temporary Support. This will bear the weight and keep the form steady while you work on it. At the end it will be carefully removed. The size and shape of the Temporary Support can be changed as needed at any time.Ta Daa!Photos of the chosen horse will help you place the feet in a good place. They are surprisingly close together, set under the weight of the shoulders (like ours) and hips. Fix them down by blending the clay into the base. This can be changed right up until the piece is dry. You could cut off a leg or any other part and redo it at any time. That’s one of the great things about working in clay.Blocking Out: Do a little improvement to every part of the form then do Rotations again with a little more. And repeat! Layers and layers of work will allow the form to develop evenly. Focus only on the essentials: the proportions NOT details. Each bit affects how the other bits look: you might think the head looks wrong but actually the head is good, it is the neck that is wrong and so on.The movement of working will cause the clay to slump. Check the height regularly by measuring your skeleton diagram. Squeeze the Temporary Support to make it higher. Work on the legs. Use a hair dryer to stiffen it up a bit.Measure repeatedly from your invaluable diagram to get the proportions that will make it look like a horse not a cow or dog!The tip of the tool marks one point, your finger makes the other: hold this and transfer it to your clay.Mark the measurement on the clay. Add or subtract clay. Measure the next bit. Etc.Sketching on the bones after measuring them will improve your sculpture, speed up your progress and increase your learning hugely. You are expanding your knowledge, challenging your habitual ideas, developing your eye for detail and improving your concentration. It is hard, fascinating and massively rewarding skill-building that will enhance your life. Seriously!Notice and model which bits go behind: the bones and muscle of the legs go over the chest and hips. The joints show you where the bendable bits are. Muscles can shrink or stretch.Once your form has stiffened up a bit use tools rather than fingers for better control and a better bond in the clay: pick up a small bit of fresh clay with the tool, dab it on a piece of damp sponge in a dish of water and model it onto the form. Use very little water or you will get a mushy, sticky mess prone to cracking later.Double check the height, lengths. This one has sagged a bit so I fixed that. Focusing on the placement of the bones is much easier than trying to capture the gentle curves of a specific animal. This is still the Blocked-OutARMATURE. You have used the Craftsmanship of Portraiture to get everything in it’s key, horse-like placeNow I have a clear framework for my Creativity to play with! Once you have the proportions right you can create the pose, type, age, character and mood of your animal. A simple turn of the head brings it alive!As you bend the form into your chosen pose look from above and use the spine to guide you so it doesn’t get distorted.Blow-dry it a bit. Now walk away and look at something far away for a few minutes to clear your eyes. Turn back: what is the first thing you notice? That is probably a bit that needs fixing or it might be the best bit. Sort out any problems now. On this one the back legs are set wrong, looks like he’s peeing…Block-out all the details like mane, ears and tail. These parts are very expressive so take time over them in rough and they can be refined in your next set of Rotations.Play around with textures. I’m thinking about the semi-wild Mountain Ponies here in the Brecon Beacons National Park. The style you use should be consistent over the whole form: don’t over-do the face unless your whole animal is very detailed or it will look like a mask. Keep the features in proportion to the skull or it will look like a disease.Use the tail and add plants on the ground to reinforce the legs. Work on the base to make it look as good as the animal.At this point I set my self a very helpful Final Finishing Touches Rule; A minimum of 5 Rotations with increasingly small tools: make additions of clay where ever you spot the need. Change tool and do a rotation of subtraction of clay. Then a rotation of adding etc, until you hit a rotation where you can’t see any more you could do. That means you have done your best on this piece.If the legs are firm enough gently remove the Temporary Support in small pieces and touch up the form.Trim the base nicely and under-cut it a bit to catch a shadow that will lift the whole piece and guard against ugly chipping. Sign and date the sculpture on the edge of the base or under-neath it.Dry your sculpture slowly or the legs may crack as they will shrink faster than the rest of the form. A cardboard box placed over the top is ideal to slowly allow moisture to escape. Self-hardened this will be delicate but last forever so long as it doesn’t get wet. Firing will make it stronger and water-proof. When it is dry/fired paint/wax/stain the surface : a simple all over bronze colour always looks great.
Working on a larger Scale.
I ran the following workshop over two days at the wonderful North Devon Ceramics Academy and Studio. Nicola Crocker and Taz Pollard have created a fantastic, fun, supportive and practical space for learning and sharing creativity in clay. I absolutely love teaching there. Nicola and Taz have a very genuine commitment to empowering other people and sharing their open and imaginative approach to the vast potential within ceramics. The Studio is spacious, bright and comfortable and the atmosphere is friendly, unpretentious and very encouraging.
This amazing group of all experience levels were a joy to work with. And they came up with some great improvements to the technique. You will also adapt it to suit your hands and ideas.
We are using the out-standing Scarva ES50 Crank clay (a stoneware clay with a lot of grog (ground up ceramic grit) in a variety of sizes from coarse to dust making it much easier to hand-build with because of the way it reacts with water (allowing for excellent joins) and it’s superb strength when leather-hard and also when dry. You can use different clays for the armature and exterior but using the same one means everything shrinks at the same rate during drying and firing.
Many thanks to Nicola Crocker for the great photos of the workshop.
The Technique:
Print out skeleton images of your animal, ideally in the same scale as you wish to make your sculpture, images of the whole animal and images of that animal in the pose you want. On to a stiff slab that will be your central support, carefully draw the skeleton. This is an important opportunity to get your head around this animals construction. You can trace through the skeleton using pin-pricks or pressure. But measuring from the diagram to transfer the image will begin the process of clarifying your knowledge of the animal for the purpose of sculpture.Here the skeleton is set clearly in a simple-to-read pose. The sketch is the pose desired. On the clay slab the skeleton is set in the pose. This is not easy to do, takes time and is a huge, worthwhile investment in your sculpture’s foundation and in your skills.Using stiff slabs, stand your central support up ensuring it is nice and stable. Make good joins: while much of this supporting armature will be cut away eventually, some of it will remain and be useful during the firing. Build outwards using images of the animal to assess the widths. Use comparative measurements: the rib-cage is twice the width of the head etc.A narrow, standing figure like a meercat, will need something to support him or he will be and almost worst, look, very fragile. In the figurative tradition acceptable motifs are employed: think of those little shrubberies at the ankles of classic marble nudes statues. Or you can add a second figure and get support, a fascinating narrative and lots of fab negative shapes into the bargain.Supports can added and removed all through the process. This wonderful student, herself a teacher came up with several practical and useful ways to improve this technique.If you are comfortable doing it, build hollow. Or add the clay on solid. At this stage you are still building the frame-work for the sculpture: disciplined measurements will give you a great foundation that will give life to the artwork stage.
Squirrel.
This piece is all about the energy and character of this squirrel. The ‘fluffy tail’ can be a meaningless cliche and has not been used here.
Work right around the form in layers giving full attention to the whole sculpture at each rotation. It is extremely important that you are always willing to cut off parts that are wrong no matter how long you worked on them. A beautifully crafted eye will look grotesque in the wrong place.Once your form is completely blocked out, with all proportions correct, switch to using tools to apply the clay rather than fingers. You will get a more attractive, stronger surface and can be more specific. A good habit is to go all around adding. Then all around subtracting, repeat until you can’t see what else could be done better at this point in your progression. Then hollow if necessary. Then do finishing touches (with small tools) Then poke a needle hole into any area that might contain trapped air.Add other types of supports if useful but remember they wont shrink with the form during drying so they can cause cracks.
Birds
Making birds is notoriously difficult because of their insane relationship with gravity. Work slowly in stages allowing the parts to firm up and add to the support system. Remove parts of your clay-armature cautiously in small stages.
This flying bird will be set on a base as yet un-determined. The armature holds the pose well on this very tricky piece allowing it to change and develop.Flying Bird.Flaying Bird.A Crow. This flexible technique can take you places you hadn’t thought of. Here the internal space has become part of the sculpture.A Crow. Because the weight is supported and the skeleton provides strong boundaries you can play and feel your way around the form. The finished piece will need it’s own supports but here you can try various alternatives until you are happy with the look, strength and feel.A Crow. Lots more trial and error will happen to this fascinating bird-scape in the next weeks.Flying Bird. Take breaks, look out side to clear your eyes then glance at your sculpture and note what you first notice. If you hit a wall with it cover with a bag and walk away! I sometimes leave sculpture wrapped for months. I check regularly to mist with water and see if I can move forward again. Taking photos can be a good way to get some perspective. Ask others ‘what they see’ and compare that to what you want them to see. A dog that looks like a donkey has too big a head and too-tall ears for example.
Giraffe
A wonderful form where negative shapes play a stunning role. Their grace and movement is enchanting and very tricky to capture.
Giraffe.Giraffe Five points of contact with the ground could give this piece stability but at this small scale those legs and feet are still so small. This elegant solution, where the central support is tidied up attractively and immediately becomes neutral, eliminates the distracting fragility.Giraffe.
Wild Boar
This animal is iconic and has held it’s place in art for Millenia. It’s bulky form and thick fur can easily be over generalised into a blob on sticks. Here the skeleton secures the integrity of the structure. This sculpture is about his power and movement.
Wild Boar This piece will be completely cut away from it’s supports once it is firm to retain it’s shape, rested on foam and a hole made for a metal pin and base that will show off it’s galloping form once it’s fired.Wild BoarWild BoarWild Boar The details of the face should be in balance with the rest of the sculpture’s texture and level of detail. At this small scale it is also a mistake to try and put on complicated detail. It will take a lot of time to find what can be left out. The skull will give you the clues: it is the structure of the face that matters.Wild Boar
Cats
Cats are extraordinarily flexible and their exterior hides their structure. Making pets can be very difficult because we have so much knowledge of them that can cloud the sculptural information. Use the skeleton to keep on track with proportions that our nutty perceptions may think are similar to humans!
Crouching CatStanding CatStanding Cat. Note the bend in the legs which is usually obscured by fur and the loose skin that allows cats to stretch so much. Standing Cat It is too soon for superficial details like ears. Focus on the key structure. This is still at Armature stage and it’s all about applying the Craftsmanship of Portraiture at this stage. The Arty, creative bit goes on top of that excellent, species-specific structure.Crouching Cat. The position of the bones and the length of the legs is very confusing and tricky to get right. Divide the problem into manageable steps: Focus on the joint, they tell you where bends should be. Be sure the joint is in the right place. Measure the bone’s length and swivel it from the joint. Move to the next joint and bone. Etc.Standing Cat. This excellent, strong, central support allows you to place the legs where you want them on both sides to create the pose. Then the legs will stiffen and take on the extra work of holding up the weight of the body. The base should stay in place in the finished sculpture as it adds to the stability and strength of the legs. So, later that base can be made attractive.Crouching cat. Early stages with this one where it clearly wanted to be bigger! That was easy to change. Crouching Cat. A beautiful, gentle way to address the eyes expressively, in keeping with the form.
Dogs
This student had gorgeous pictures of her adorable young dog, especially his loving face. But at this small scale she focussed on his movement and energy to portray him. She will paint his distinctive markings on in colour.
DogDog Keep re-checking those measurements at every stage.DogDogDogDog The central support is removed gradually and with great care.Dog The armature is cut away (but continues to function usefully inside). Needle holes will be poked up into the form to vent all the air pockets made by building hollow. Then a hole will be placed for a wooden dowel set in a base to display this dog leaping as he runs.
Meercats
These little guys have tiny feet and very slender legs. You could build some grass or rocks around their lower legs to give stability. Or add a friend.
MeercatsMeercatsMeercats Like the giraffe parts of the support wall could remain and no-one would notice because the charm of these characters and their friendship is far more engaging.Meercats
Otter
This up-right stance gives similar problems to the meercats but the way otters stand gives plenty of attachment to the base.
OtterOtter An otter’s simple form can be very difficult to capture. His gesture and poses are well recognized so that helps. Starting with the skeleton puts the key points of his body in the right place under that silky fur. There is a lovely change in loose to very smooth modelling on the surface that recalls water running off the fur.
The Horse
Like many big herbivores, horses have surprises in their skeletons that are key to their shape. A ridge of spurs along the spine limits over-flexing but also keeps predator teeth away from the precious spinal column. It defines their characteristic silhouette. The skull seems bizarre but get that blocked in well and the head will look great, even in a small scale.
HorseHorseHorse Follow the transition points of the legs very carefully. Note how those big neck muscles cross and attach behind the shoulder blades. At this stage it is almost as if the legs are just attached to the edge of the body but you now know those leg bones go right up near the spine and have a wide range of movement which can be gauged by measuring the length of a bone and pivoting it from it’s socket. It was suggested that you could cut up a spare skeleton in order to make a hinged ‘shadow puppet’ that could be helpful in designing the pose from a standing skeleton.Horse Taking full advantage of the central support.Horse
Armadillo.
These guys go well out of their way not to look like animals all! They have extraordinary skeletons, well worth studying. But it has to be said that apart from getting proportions right, the hard shell-like outer skin means you see no clues of the bones showing on the armadillo’s surface. Their shell is a very subtle, beautiful shape with exquisite patterns.
Armadillo This student did all the skeleton work as part of the workshop. But then he switched to working solid/hollowing (this link takes you to a post specifically about that technique) out as a technique far better suited to armadillos.Armadillo On solid clay use your skeleton to identify the right proportions.ArmadilloArmadillo Use a serrated kidney tool to shape the body. Then use a flat wide modelling tool to add clay and further refine that gently undulating form.
Your central, weight-bearing support does not need to be flat/straight: Both of these abstracts below were built outwards from a stiffened, curvy, up-right central shape of various thickness set on a metal rod. You can see parts of the original central support where it became part of the final form, much like the sculpture of the Giraffe above.
Antarctic Harbinger III, 26cm H x 37cm W x19cm D.Antarctic Leviathan, 45cm L x 23cm H x 12cm D.
Quality Joints:
Genuine joins are formed when the chains of platelet-shaped particles from each section inter-lock. Picture a magnified image of hair.
Score marks do not give the surface ‘tooth’; they allow water into the clay-body. On vertical surfaces they hold the water in place to give it time to sink in and swell the clay so that the platelets are able to link with other platelets.
Slip is not ‘glue’, it is clay particles spread out in water and has little strength, especially when it has dried . It is ideal for holding a lot of water in place to give it time to be absorbed to soften the area of leather-hard clay.
Once both edges are softened put the pieces back together and move them back and forth until you feel the edges lock together. Manipulate the softened clay at the join to encourage further integration of those particle-chains and to disturb the straight line of the join; cracks love to zing along a nice straight slip-weakened join during the firing when the pull of shrinking stresses the sculpture.
Thicknesses: cracking/breaking.
How thick the clay can be to fire well depends on the amount of grog (the gritty bits of pre-fired clay ground to specific sized grit/dust that gives improved structure and resilience to your clay), the denseness of your modelling style, drying time and the speed of your firing.
Air bubbles trapped in the clay will expand with the heat. Grog and/or a loose surface will allow the air to seep through the clay. The same is true with water but steam expands fast. If your piece breaks into big bits during the fire it was trapped air and you will be able to see where the bubbles were in the shards. If it blows up into a trillion smithereens it wasn’t properly dry!
Drying:
I dry thick sculptures slowly under plastic which I turn inside out ( to avoid condensation pooling) daily for 4 weeks minimum and then 1-2 weeks in a plastic tent with a dehumidifier. A card-board box makes a great, slow, draft-free drying chamber. A long dry allows the water to level out, as water loves to do, and that will enhance the structure of the clay within it’s new sculpture shape. You will get less cracks or distorting in the fire.
I fire very slowly with an 18 degree C rise until 600 degrees C. then onto full power up to the desired temperature.
Generally 3cm is a fair maximum thickness for a well grogged clay.
How To Make a Head is essentially the same method and you will find it helpful. It talks about human heads but of course is relevant to all heads apart from the handy option of being able to measure with callipers from your own.
Rebecca Buck 