Clay Sculpture Query - Which Materials to Use?

by Marco
(Montreal)

Clay Sculpture Query - Which Materials to Use?:- Hi. I have not read all your site, and thus it might not be appropriate to ask this here, because you may have already answered it somewhere. But I only have ONE question, so to spare me time,if you will, here is the question:

Would clay sculpting be the ONLY sculpting technique where you could mold the stuff at your leisure, without worrying if you chipped away too much (as in wood, stone etc...); in other words , you can add on clay again if you made a mistake, and proceed. Also, I don't believe clay would dry out hard after a short time, right?

I ask all this because I did my first sculpture with snow a few days ago, and WOOOOW!!, what a trip! I really enjoyed it!! Obviously I can't do it much again, because winter is running out, and snow can only be modelled when the temperature is just right. So I want to do all this again, but with clay or some other material that I can easily mold like snow (but that will stay, whereas snow melts... ugh, my snow-woman was all melted today..sigh..)

Thanks for any help!

Marco Ermacora

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Reply by Peter Holland

To "Clay Sculpture Query - Which Materials to Use?"

Dear Marco

Sounds like you got the bug OK!

Unlike carving techniques (stone, wood etc), clay allows any amount of reworking. Even the Renaissance masters didn't go straight into chipping away at their marble.

Part of their technique was to make a very accurate and detailed clay maquette of the final design of the statue. They would then rig up very complex contraptions to scale up this clay model, so they had precise mathematically calculated positions which to remove the marble to. There is no second chance with marble, which is why they made such a science of the art of stone carving.


If you thought more abstract and free pieces would be done differently, you would be wrong. Abstract 20th Century sculptor Henry Moore, would make a careful maquette from clay which his 'staff' would then carve into stone on his behalf. He hardly ever did stone carving himself.

Carving stone, sand, ice or wood sculptures is a brilliant skill which takes years of training to perfect. In comparison, I find pushing around bits of clay relatively simple.

If you read my section on types of clay you will see I favour ceramic clay for sculpting. Oil clays and wax are too stiff. With ceramic clay you can start with it fluid and easy to move around. It then hardens off and can be added to or taken away to your hearts content.

Just keep it moist and in prime condition and work to your hearts content for as long as you like.

Regards

Peter Holland

www.figurinecollect.com (These pages show our new English made bone china figurine collection)
www.figurines-sculpture.com (This is my bigger site covering all aspects of fine china making)

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