Bead Chat Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 34

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 FACEBOOK WEBSITE