Process
Sculpting With Clay
There is no right or wrong way to sculpt. I generally start with an idea and sketch it out...or if I’m
sculpting an animal, I’ll use a photo as reference
for proportions.
Firstly I’ll make a base on which to start building
up the layers of clay. This is good because I size it
to roughly the size I want the pendant to be...this
keeps me in proportion so I don’t end up making
the final piece too large.
Once I have the base, I’ll add the general shape
of what I’m sculpting with little blobs of clay to
give me an idea of proportion and to lay the basic
shapes out. You can see on the right in the first
smaller image I didn’t leave enough room for the
horses “snout” so I extended the base to give me
more room.
Once the basic blobby shapes are on I’ll smooth
them all together and also smooth them to the
base...if the clay
creativebeadchat.com
isn’t wet enough, I’ll use a water mister, wet clay
sticks better!
I’ll then repeat this process of smoothing and
adding clay, using the clay shapers to add shape,
or in this case, muscle and mane!
Once I’ve got the main shape and details right,
like ears, mane and eyes, I’ll leave them to dry out
a little. As the clay hardens, it’s easier to use the
tools to smooth the clay as it doesn’t drag as easily! Finally I’ll use the mini sculpting tools to carve
in the detail around the ears, the eye and the hairs
in the mane.
Once the master sculpt has dried out, I’ll smooth
any edge and fire to bisque. Once fired I make a
mould from clay and then fire the mould to give
me a solid mould from which I can reproduce the
master sculpt to make pendants with!
ETSY
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