Logistical Process of using water – based clay

[Adam Pohlig]

hi , would anyone be able to help me if they know about the sculpting process? From what I understand, using water based clay is Both easy and difficult. Easy being the natural simplicity of the material, and difficult being that you need to create an armature and dealing with the cracking and evaporation after. I can’t seem to find any real advice or discussion on how to treat your sculpture after modeling. It does seem like a lot of people fire their sculptures after modeling, but does this mean your armature has to be metal? Or some material that will not burn?

Is there a process for treating a sculpture with another medium to avoid having to fire it (expensive especially for life size forms)? I was thinking to coat with a  resin of some kind…

Thanks!

 

[Caleb Jacobo]

At our studio, we mainly work in oil-based clay called JMAC. We prefer this because you don’t need to spray it with water or wrap it and it won’t ever crack or dry out. The only downside is that it is more expensive and that you have to eventually make a mold of it to get something permanent.

 

We will be doing a course soon with sculptor Judy Fox and she will be covering a lot of the basic water-based clay process.

[Author]

Posts