WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

On my worktable today are more miniature dog sculptures in little Halloween scenes. I am having a lot of fun with these. They are only 2" tall and about 3" in length. I just love tiny things and I see a lot of people share that feeling.

I'm still debating on the tutorial I had been working on. I don't really care for the pdf format. Would much rather do a video tutorial but not sure how to go about it just yet, so that project has been on the back burner lately.

In sculpting though it's really just a matter of forming basic shapes and then blending them together. It's the refining, and the details added that make the difference in taking those basic shapes and transforming them into something special. It's adding clay to a piece or taking it away, and refining it til it looks the way you want it to. At least that's what works for me. I have seen in a book where someone tried to say they developed this method of sculpting with clay, to the great amusement of myself and many other clay artists, because it's the method we've all been using since we began sculpting with clay! The refining and the details just become better with experience.

So what begins as a little lump of clay has other bits of molded clay added to it, and those pieces are blended together, and the whole piece is refined and detail is added until we have the finished piece.

Starts out pretty rough, doesn't it? Hard to believe that blob is going to turn into anything recognizable, but it will. :o)






Still a bit more refining and detail needed, and a tail as well, but the little Bichon Frise has come a long way from its humble beginnings no?

PLAYING, EXPERIMENTING, LEARNING

Well I've been temporarily sidetracked by a new technique - new to me anyway, but something many polymer clayers have been doing in one variation or another for quite some time. I'm talking about faux cloisonné. I have always loved the look of enamels and cloisonné, and just recently I came across a wonderful tutorial by Eugena Topina and just had to try it. Eugena's work is absolutely sensational. There are lots of different ways you can achieve the look of cloisonné using polymer clay, but her's is one of the easiest and she has a tutorial available via her website or Etsy shop. I'm still learning so I'm trying to work the bugs out of my technique, but this is definitely something I want to do more of. Here's my attempt at a cloisonné flamingo pendant. Wish I had made the flamingo's neck longer, but hey it was my first attempt and I'm not at all used to working with wire. This technique uses wire, and mica powders encased in a clear dimensional glass-like finish to simulate cloisonné. I also added three Swarovski crystals that have a pink tone to them. Lots of fun, though working with tiny bits of wire can be frustrating!



SCULPTING DOGS TUTORIAL

I've received many emails over the years asking if I had any tutorials or a book available on how to sculpt dogs. I'm now working on a tutorial that will most likely be available in a pdf format and hope to have it ready soon. Of course there is no way I could cover how to sculpt all the many different breeds there are in any tutorial. So what I plan to focus on is the basics of sculpting just the heads of the dogs to use for pins or ornaments, etc. Watch this blog for updates.