Polymer Clay Fan

It should be no surprise to anyone that has dabbled in clay and wax that sculpting is a very time consuming project. There may be some artist out there that can whip out masterpieces in a flash but for us mere mortals most projects require a vast amount of hours from their inception to their completion. As with any activity that demands a huge investment of your time, it’s easy to get lost in the mistakes. I am also guilty of spending countless hours working on a section of my art only to find out later that the symmetry is off or that the design is just too stale.

Sometimes the best approach for tackling a big project is to know when you need to set aside some distance with it. I’ve found that if I spend too much time on one area of my sculpture that I sometimes get lost in it and my eyes can no longer see the mistakes. Due to my schedule, most of my sculpting can take me into the late midnight hours so I’m already at a disadvantage with tired eyes before I even begin. For this reason I’ve found, although fail to put into practice form time to time, that it is best to jump around the sculpture instead of becoming fixated with one section of it. However, no matter how much jumping around I do there are times that I need to set the sculpture aside and revisit it with what I call “fresh eyes”.
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Out of all the polymer clays that I have used thus far Super Sculpey is by far my favorite. It is a huge improvement over the original Sculpey which in my opinion is way too soft for detailed sculpting. Super Sculpey offers the best of both worlds by being firm enough to sculpt a high level of details but also soft enough to manipulate the clay with ease.

If there is one disadvantage or downfall with Super Sculpey it is that the color has a tendency to make it harder to see things like fingerprints in the clay. The light beige color is translucent and after hours of sculpting it can put a strain on your eyes (or at least mine). There are ways around this and the easiest fix is to mix Super Sculpey with another colored polymer clay like Fimo or Premo. I’ve done this many times and the color that I like to best work with is a medium shade of gray. Gray is easier on my eyes and makes it to see all of the details, including the unwanted fingerprints. Read the rest of this entry »

Sculpting the Fiddler’s Hand

I already have another tutorial about sculpting a hand with polymer clay but the images were taken with my old camera and I felt this was a good opportunity give an older tutorial a fresher look. I’m only going to create a rough hand since I will later attach it to the fiddle. Hands can be a little tricky to sculpt so the key here is to spend as much time as necessary to get the sculpting down correctly.

If sculpting hands come naturally easy to you then a big kudos to you. I myself still find the hands and eyes the most difficult things to sculpt. However, I have improved because I have invested those long hours making sure that I got everything down correctly.

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A few simple tips and tricks to help you evaluate your artwork

I’m a firm believer that when sculpting you should from time to time step back and take a different look at your art. If you stare at the same thing for too long of a period of time, it can become easy to overlook minor and sometimes major mistakes within your artwork. There are several different tools or methods that I use to evaluate my art when I am sculpting.

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Sculpting the fiddle – building the design

Ok, you are probably going to see me jump around a bit during these series. I don’t like to focus on only one area while I am sculpting, I like to move around a bit so that everything stays fresh. That being said, I have found for me that it is important to get a good base for the face before I begin to work on other parts of the sculpture. I have found that when I save sculpting the face towards the end I usually end up making mistakes that throw the rest of the sculpture off (for example the head is too big for the body). We have a pretty good start on our face, although it is not finished, so I think it is time to move on to a few more areas.

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