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Bare-Hands Sculpting

September 8, 2025
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Last week, hastily I turned a lump of clay into a semblance of a bird,  then wrapped it to slow its drying. When I took it out this morning I decided to finish sculpting it with no help from any tools. As ways the goal is to become a better sculptor.

The clay is firm but still has some flex to it. I was able to change the overall shape with careful squeezing compression with two hands. It was possible to remove a small amount of clay from the (unreal) tail section, making eyeballs for the lady’s head, but I then faced the challenge of affixing them, and I didn’t want to use saliva, finding the prospect literally distasteful. Luckily I had a small amount of perspiration around my temples, and I harvested as much of it as I could, and now I need a shower. 🙂

Fingernails came in handy for making curves curvier and sun shapes less ambiguous. I’m not too obsessed with perfection–Nature herself is loaded with imperfections–but it improves a work of art to reduce, if not eliminate, internal inconsistency.

Here’s bird-eyedly looking at you, Friends!

Additive Sculpting

August 19, 2024
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The potter uses his wire tool to wire off about a third of a 25-pound bag of Cone 5 B Mix clay. He subdivides and wedges this into four roughly equal lumps.

At the potter’s wheel, he gets the wheel spinning/Slams one of the lumps onto the batt on the wheelhead/Wets his hands, centers the clay, and flattens and spreads it until it is a disc about half an inch thick and just shy of the diameter of the batt. He remove the disc-topped batt from the wheelhead and puts on another batt.

Centering another clay lump, he drives his thumbs down its middle. He spreads his thumbs to open the floor of the vessel, and pulls up its wall until it is about seven inches high. Soon he has a vase with an elegant out-in-flute curve and a smooth, friendly lip. He carefully cuts the vase free of the batt with his wire tool and puts the vase aside.

Now some freeform sculpting of/Banjo player, stool and love/Seeger-like but with cigar/Skinny/Beard up/Tatts and scar

One lump to go. The banjo player need a banjo, a dog, and a microphone with stand. Cordage/Is tricky/So he tries to fake it/With an implied coil snaking around the pole of the stand/But no dice so what the hell it’s cordless/But the dog is easy/Homage to his beloved companion, now gone nine years…

The disc batt goes back on the wheel and he makes it look like a vinyl LP including title of song (“Sand Land”) and the name of the artist (“Arch Welder”) and other indicia. He paints the disc with black and red stains and then increases the spin speed/And incises an impossible, unplayable, crisscrossing groove into the black-stained area.

Now he needs slip, a lot of it. There is almost enough slurry in the bottom of his water bucket. He puts it in a Dixie cup and adds clay and water until it is the viscosity of Elmer’s Glue./Then he uses a tool like a brush but with metal bristles and scratches up the surfaces that the slip will/Adhere. Outsized vase, stool, microphone stand and banjo player all all affixed/To the faux vinyl disc/Floor.

His back hurts. He glances up at the wall clock. Almost six well-sculpted hours have passed.