Sculpting Tutorials Free Online
From Royal Doulton Master Sculptor


Sculpting Tutorials - Advanced Techniques Section

Peter Holland reveals many traditional secrets in these easy-to-follow and free online tutorials.

Royal Worcester's Snow Queen Click to Enlarge

 snow queen Royal Worcester figurine





What You Need More Than Anything = 'Mind Set'

The advanced techniques in these Tutorials are mostly about refining and fine tuning - working with ceramic clay. Refining and fine tuning are mostly about tools. Oh.... and one other quite important thing I nearly forgot - the 'mind set' of the person doing the work.

Strangely, the least patient people can possess the patience of a saint when it comes to fulfilling their creative urges.

That's a good thing. Patience and determination rank much more highly than gifted artistic ability when it comes to advanced techniques. That is the most important message of these Tutorials.




Other than the correct mental approach, what you need are three main things:

  • A picture in your mind of what you want to make. This comes under the heading of positive visualization - a learned skill which can be drilled by using the techniques in this ebook about positive visualization. See also the page on 'The War Of Art'

  • A knowledge of the sculpting tools you need to make the vision become real.

  • A special kind of determination.


    • IMPORTANT SIDEBAR - notice I didn't say anything about fabulous artistic ability or 'formal' training.


    The Essential 2 Stage Preparation For Advanced Sculpting Tutorials:

    Stage 1 Prep

    Follow the instructions in part 1 (Basic Sculpture Technique).

    The difference here in the advanced section of the Sculpting Tutorials is you may need a specialist modeling clay if you are doing very fine detailed ceramic clay models, and also a few specialist tools.

    I use a UK clay by Potclays called 1150 Modeling/Throwing Clay which is highly plastic and excellent for detailed models, sculpting, throwing and burnishing and excellent for firing. The same can be said for several Amaco clays (US equivalent) reviewed in full here.

    The other difference is you may need some specialist tools.

    Your starter tool set has got you to a certain point, but won't get you any further. From now on its all about the tool techniques you need to advance and finesse your sculpt.

    If you have looked at the basic techniques section, you should now have the ability to produce a base or background on which to work in order to progress with these sculpting tutorials.

    dividers for sculpture Stage 2 Prep

    Now you need to be able to measure accurately (I use dividers like these) in order to start to fine tune your sculpt. If you are sculpting the human form, find some way of measuring your subject and then scaling down to your chosen scale.

    measure your sculpture



    Yes, a bit of back to school math I'm afraid (at least, that's how I tackle it). Other people may recommend the use of string and comparison scaling (e.g. the length of your forearm is the same as the distance from your chin to the top of your forehead etc etc) in their sculpting tutorials. This system is fine to a point, depending on how precise you want to be in your work.

    Personally I don't like to leave room for uneccessary error, so I prefer to be very precise with properly scaled measurements, which I record in neatly kept notebooks. These are the advanced Sculpting Tutorials after all!

    TIP: Proportional dividers are expensive, but can come in very handy for accurate scaling if you don't like math, especially on facial features.


    Here are some books which compliment these tutorials


    So now.... Onto The Advanced Clay Sculpture Tutorials





    See also other sculpting tips on how to manage clay, basic sculpture technique

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