Using Sculpey Clay for the First Time
When I was younger, I was obsessed with watching YouTube videos on polymer clay sculptures. I especially loved the ones where they would sculpt an entire mini bakery or house. But when I got the assignment in my 3D design class that we were to create a sculpture of an animal, I was super nervous. I had not touched clay since I was in probably the second grade and the student examples that my professor showed were INCREDIBLE. A lot to live up to.
The first step to creating our animal sculptures was to come up with sketches. My sketches were inspired by the circus or a carnival. I drew over a dozen options from elephants to tigers to zebras, etc. The last sketch I drew, however, became the one I knew I wanted to create. A carousel horse!
After we settled on our final sketch, we created a base out of wire armature and SteelStik - the thing people use to repair cars. Once we had our base made out of wire, we attached aluminum foil to start building out the shape of the animal. Mine was a little tricky, since I wanted the pole to be going through the horse, like it was actually on a carousel. My professor gave me the advice to build them out of clay separately and put a hole through the body of the horse to put the pole through. I also knew I wanted the horse to be “floating” in the air without any of it’s hooves touching the base. My advice for this - use a LOT of SteelStik. When I was trying to get the horse to stay up, it was about 3am in the morning and I woke my boyfriend up to come hold it while I piled on the SteelStik. (Thanks babe.) After using up an entire tube of SteelStick on the base of the sculpture and top and bottom of the horse where the pole went through, it stayed up! My professor said she has never had anyone accomplish this before. Mentally patted myself on the back.
In hindsight, I definitely could have gotten the clay a bit smoother, which is something that I will keep in mind whenever I use clay again in the future. Something that a few of my classmates used to help put their clay on smoother was running it through a pasta maker. This made the clay flat. You could also use a rolling pin.
After everything was sculpted, I put the horse in the oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit. The time and temperature to bake clay depends on the type of clay you use (I was using Super Sculpey Beige) and the size of your sculpture. So if you are planning on creating your own piece out of clay, make sure to research oven temperature and the amount of time you need to put it in for in order to prevent your sculpture from breaking or burning.
After the horse came out of the oven, I painted it! I chose a primary color palette paired with blacks and whites to stick to the carnival-inspired color palette. I probably spent even more time painting than I did sculpting to make sure the values paired well together and that I could get as much detail as I could.
Overall, I love how this came out, even with all the imperfections. One of the many benefits of being at an art school is that everything you work on is always fun, creative, and exciting.
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