Squidbook: Clay Sculpture Demonstrations

Information About Clay & Clay Artworks

Sculpting With Clay - About the Clay Medium

Clay is very durable - There are many examples of clay sculptures lasting for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. Many horse sculptures are still around from ancient Chinese dynasties. There are exhibitions even today at major metropolitan museums showcasing ceramic sculptures from West Mexico...

Tools and Materials For Sculpting Water-Based Clay

Preparations - Before beginning a sculpture, start by drawing out your ideas on paper to find the exact positioning and structure that you want. Small details can be added to the drawings, but don't get too technical here.Armature - A good armature for a clay sculpture consists of a wooden base with...

Small Clay Demonstration - Lidded Box Demo

Building Basic Forms - This demonstration will cover key areas of the basics of working with clay, p. 1.

Small Clay Demonstration - Lidded Box Demo p.2

Building Basic Forms - This demonstration will cover key areas of the basics of working with clay, p. 2.

Small Clay Demonstration - Lidded Box Demo p.3

Building Basic Forms - This demonstration will cover key areas of the basics of working with clay, p. 3.

Building a Small Clay Horse Head Sculpture, No Armature p. 1

This sculpture will start out with a very simple armature made of crushed-up newspaper. It will not need any type of support like the larger sculptures, so you will not need the pvc pipes. You may want to use extra newspaper under the sculpture to protect the surface you are working on.

Building a Small Clay Horse Head Sculpture, No Armature p. 2

Page 2 - Sculpting the Details - This sculpture will start out with a very simple armature made of crushed-up newspaper. It will not need any type of support like the larger sculptures, so you will not need the pvc pipes. You may want to use extra newspaper under the sculpture to protect the surface

Building a Small Clay Horse Head Sculpture, No Armature p. 3

Page 3 - The Finished Sculpture - This sculpture will start out with a very simple armature made of crushed-up newspaper. It will not need any type of support like the larger sculptures, so you will not need the pvc pipes. You may want to use extra newspaper under the sculpture to protect the surfac

Building a Clay Panther Sculpture - The Armature

Below is an illustration of the armature setup. The plywood (I use different sizes for different sculptures, in this case, a 15' x 22' board) has a hole cut in the center to accommo

Building a Clay Panther Sculpture p.2 - Sculpting

Once you have a drawing of the sculpture you want to make, a good reference book depicting muscle/bone structures of your subject is invaluable for creating a good sculpture.

Building a Clay Panther Sculpture p.3 - Finishing Touches & Venting

Once the sculpture is completed and before it is allowed to dry out, you need to punch some holes through the sculpture to make sure there are no air pockets. Always make sure that when you punch through the clay that you will break through to the newspaper armature under the clay surface. Otherwise...

Building a Clay Panther Sculpture p.4 - The Finished Sculpture

The finished, unfired sculpture, still on the armature.

Firing & Repairing

Firing Clay Artworks - Preparing To Fire (Panther & Small Horse Sculptures)

When placing the sculpture in the kiln, you need to leave at least 1 inch between the sculpture and the elements. In this case, the sculpture is too large; the head is an inch away from the side, but the back leg is not. When this happens, just leave the element that is too close to the sculpture of

Firing Clay Artworks - Orton Cone Charts & Firing Schedules

This lens contains two different firing schedules (one for digital timers & temp. control, one for manual (cone) firing. There's also an orton cone chart.

Fixing A Broken Sculpture

This lens is a continuation of my clay sculpture demo. If a clay sculpture breaks, either before firing or during, you can fix it. You'll need a strong ceramic adhesive or epoxy, body putty (used for body repair on cars), rasps, sandpaper, etc., and most of the sculpture pieces (the more pieces you

Repairing a Broken Clay Sculpture - Holes From The Armature

This lens is a continuation of my clay sculpture demo. If a clay sculpture breaks, either before firing or during, you can fix it. You'll need a strong ceramic adhesive or epoxy, body putty (used for body repair on cars), rasps, sandpaper, etc., and most of the sculpture pieces (the more pieces you

Buying a Used Kiln or Building Your Own

Most kilns have the same basic parts. Gas kilns have a few different parts, but this list should be useful for most kilns, especially electric kilns. The biggest difference with kilns is usually the type of controls. Some have digital controllers with no switches, while some have knobs instead of sw