You can see on this small piece I’m using an ordinary shish-kebab skewer you’d find at the grocery store as an armature and to poke a labyrinth of air channels. The skewer pierces through the top of the piece all the way to the wood board and will allow air and any remaining moisture to escape in the kiln. The hole in the belly button goes right to the skewer
I use a needle tool to poke channels all over in the clay. These channels need to be 1/4 inch apart or less. I aim the needle tool so that it hits the metal of the skewer so I know it’s made contact and the channel now leads from the outer surface to an unseen hole in the bottom of the piece. I then smooth the outer surface. I’ve resurfaced most of the small holes here, but you can still see some. When I’m done making air holes, and after the sculpture is stiff enough, I pull the skewer right out and seal the hole at the top.
This is an unnamed sculpture I started last Tuesday with my friend, Jim, who invited me to try out another potential model for our sculpture group.
Filed under: Art, Blogroll, ceramics, clay, Figurative Sculpture, Joy, Marchesseault, Sculpture |
spackel 
OH oh oh – that looks like you are hurting her.
Yeah, it does. In fact, if you do this in front of a new model, they get this look of pain on their face and their feelings get hurt unless you explain why you have to do it.
So that’s how you do it! Thanks for sharing the technique. I only made two or three pieces out of a block of clay ever. Removing was interesting, but got used to adding and armatures. It’s more economical. Maybe I’ll try a smaller piece to see how it feels.
Yes! This pic was for you, Erika. I remembered I had promised you I would show you some pics of progress so you could see what I’ve been unsuccessfully describing to you about air channels and armatures, but not until after I had started smoothing and removing things.
I will take some at an earlier stage on another work.
Time to change the title from “In Progress” to “In Pause”. Let’s get going here. You must have my Christmas present by now, so back to the studio. Did you send it priority? Hope it is not another lump of coal.
Merry Christmas even if you got me nada, you little no nuts beauty.
lol, bills. I need to take new pics. I just about finished this one. pulling it out for some final touch up before drying.
Looking forward to the early stage pics!
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