A New DIY clay warmer

After a bit of thinking and searching the internet for ideas, I decided to try out a foot warming pad because it is very energy efficient and also likely to be safer than the lightbulb method.

So I ordered a foot warmer and finally a hi/low plug to control the temp a bit and it's working out great.

First I ordered the foot warming pad off Amazon to try out. It only draws 90 watts with a temp of 130 degrees. After using it a bit I found that 130˚ is a bit too high and I would alternate between pad on and pad off once the clay got too warm. Since it was working well, I went ahead and ordered the hi/low plug attachment from Amazon. I only used it a couple of days and already know it was a good addition. Once the clay reaches a toasty temp on Hi I turn it to Low to keep it warm without melting.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this new system. I place tinfoil on the heating pad and then arrange chunks of clay on the foil- as I take warm clay off the pad, I drop more cold clay onto the pad.

It does take a bit longer for the pad to warm up the clay than the light-bulb, but it is more consistent without the burning/melting hotspots. Only real drawback is that the clay really needs to be in direct contact with the pad surface so you are more limited in the amount of clay you can warm at a time. In the future I may try putting the pad into a styrofoam box to trap the ambient heat and put in more clay but for the moment and for the cost, this is working quite well. Especially in winter in Colorado it is so much nicer to sculpt with buttery-warm oil-based clay than hard chunks.

After years of using my original clay warmer hot box, I decided I wanted to try something new and more energy efficient. Plus, while the styrofoam hot box works really well, it can sometimes work too well, especially for softer clays like Chavant's Clayette in Soft and cause them to melt or have hot spots that can burn your hands if you aren't careful.

Ten minutes of looking....

The first ten minutes of work....I hate waiting and when I see a problem I want to jump in and fix it immediately. 

Or if an area isn't as finished as the rest....but waiting ten long minutes to assess everything as a whole is important work. 

So ten LOoooooong minutes before picking up the clay, tool or brush is time well spent.

Starting a new Bas Relief Sculpture

I have started a new Bas relief. It measures 18" x 24" x 3" deep and this time I am using Chavant LeBeau Touche - an oil based clay instead of the water-based clay that I had been using. It takes a lot of clay when working larger - I estimate that I currently have about 8 bars of clay ($10 each) on the piece and will probably have another bar of clay added before I'm done.

To reduce some of the clay, I did cut a foam core board to bulk out the base a bit. While I could have used tinfoil or foam to bulk out the girl and skim coated on the clay, saving $40 or more in clay, I find that I'd rather use the clay because I can carve deeper or make changes easily in the clay, but if there was a foil interior, I would end up digging into that foil and it is harder to make changes as I work.  
You can see that there are swirls in the clay - I started with older clay and bought some new clay and the dye lot was just enough different to show. A bit distracting while sculpting, but of course won't make a bit of difference when I cast and then patina the work.

Since this is oil-based clay, it sticks quite well to the board so there was no need to make the screw and wire network to support the clay as I did when using water-based clay in the first two Bas relief that I sculpted earlier.
Additionally, since this clay won't dry, it is easier to stop and start without worry about the clay drying out and it won't separate from the board, either.

I'm just in the blocking in phase now -she will be holding a larkspur flower and have wild horse mustangs in the background. I have never sculpted horses although I used to draw and paint them often so I am really looking forward to this!

How to improve your sculpture.....it's all about the silhouette.

The best things about taking workshops are meeting other great sculptors and learning new techniques from a master....or relearning old ones. I am sometimes amazed at important tools of the trade that can be forgotten to be used over the years because you are consumed with a new thought, tool, medium or technique.

While at the Sandy Scott workshop in Scottsdale recently she reminded me of something that I'd known about but hadn't been actively using for some time. I say 'actively' because I was employing this technique without conscious thought, but it is so much more powerful a tool when used with purpose and consistently.

The technique I'm referring to is Silhouetting the Work. Painters may do a value sketch to find the shapes and make the composition stronger but sculptors can employ backlighting. With painting, you make one great value sketch and you're in the homestretch, but sculptors must work from every conceivable angle. People don't just look at a sculpture like they would a painting, from basically one vantage point. They will walk completely around the work, or turn the spinning base, to view it from every angle and that also includes from above or slightly below. That is a lot of different viewpoints and the risk of having a dull or underworked area is expanded with every different viewpoint.

So our job is to make the work stunning - from every side. A tall order to say the least. It's so easy to get caught up in one area, one point of view. But that will make for weak work.
By putting the piece into a strong lighting situation, you reduce the the work to a silhouette - seeing only the dark mass that is the work (and doing your best to ignore the pipes or armature needed to create the work). Sandy likes to place her work in front of a bright window to make it dark. Lacking that option in my studio, I shine a light on the wall behind my sculpture which works quite well. Then, with the sculpture dark, you can turn the work and look at it from many angles to see if the shapes and negative spaces are interesting from all viewpoints. Does the sculpture 'read' as it is intended? Does it make sense to the viewer? If this sculpture was placed in the collector's living room window and the afternoon sun sent it into darkness - would it still be beautiful?

That is my goal as an artist. Bring more beauty into the world - celebrate the beauty that exists. Help people notice things more. When a sculpture can be strong when only a shadow, then it is strong, period. If it is uninteresting or simply a single dark shape in silhouette, then all the surface work and patina colors in the world won't make up for that.