Category: clay

Guess what I forgot to do yesterday?
Well, better late than never. To call this the final report is slightly misleading since the piece has yet to dry and will hopefully subsequently be glazed and fired, but the class is over.

Recall that in the first class we made a lot of little pieces – or at least I made a lot of little pieces. At least one of my classmates came in knowing exactly what she wanted to do, and so she made a small model, a maquette, just to figure out the particulars. I came into the second class still not sure what I wanted to do for my larger piece, but with roosters on the brain. I spent the beginning of that class making a new maquette.

The instructor helped me build an armature of PVC pipe in a T shape, which was excellent for support but did make the crouching position basically impossible – the body really had to be completely horizontal. Oh well, working within constraints is often more interesting than working without them. The first night’s work produced this:

The next week when I arrived I was not very pleased with my work in progress. Lengthening the beak made an enormous difference in my opinion, all by itself. After I did a little work on it, the instructor helped me take the armature out, but we found the clay inside was too sloppy still for hollowing the bird and expecting it not to collapse. Removing the armature required cutting the bird in half chin to tail and then stitching it back together again. Since the clay was still fairly soft, we had to support the bird’s head. Here’s the end of two nights’ work:

The fourth and final night of class, my third night of work on the bird, he had to be sliced in half again to make room to scoop out a lot of the interior clay. The thicker the clay, the longer it takes to dry and the more likely it is to dry unevenly. Again we violently slashed back and forth across the cut line to make sure the clay was thoroughly stitched together so it wouldn’t crack in the kiln later. I then did the final detailing, filled in low spots, and smoothed over rough patches with the newly available clay. I’ll go back with a piece of sandpaper and some other things probably a week from tomorrow and see if it’s dry enough yet to really smooth the surface.

Dry time is probably a good six weeks, but hopefully I will have a third post about glazing and firing this beastie!

I had my first sculpture class Monday night. The description said we would spend the first class making little idea sculptures, and the remaining three working on one larger sculpture. So far, that is accurate! I spent my time making five small pieces, and I still have no idea what I will start work on next week.

The first piece was a sort of mask, which I essentially made just as a doodle. The teacher had suggested, if we did not have an idea in mind, that we just lump clay together and mold it with no particular goal, and that similarly to how clouds will resolve themselves into shapes when one looks at them long enough, we might start to see little figures to draw out. Our “inner gargoyle,” he said. This is not my inner gargoyle, but I like it.

Second I started working on one of the few ideas I’d had prior to class: a winged toad with a satisfied grin. It did not turn out as planned. It turned out better than planned.

I was starting to run dry of ideas, and the next thing I made started out as a tall ghostly creature with arms. I briefly thought about making a Hattifattener, but ended up with a horse-like dragon.

The teacher was speaking to a woman next to me about her sculpture and mentioned something about owls. I was inspired to make an owl, odd as he might be.

Here is another view of the four pieces so far.

Finally, there was about an hour left in class, and I had a big lump of clay and no more ideas. I started pushing it around, and after going through a Mahna Mahna backup singer type piece, I produced this:

Incidentally, the only real gargoyle I made is the last piece – technically, a gargoyle is a waterspout, eliminating runoff damage to masonry by shooting water away from the building. If it’s not a waterspout, but it’s on the building, it’s a grotesque.