Sleeper

 

This is what I got up to this morning. It's a solid lump of clay but it only measures about 4" x 4" x 2". I knew I wanted to do a child and that I did not want the head to be just straight up looking forward. However, the longer I worked the more deeply the child slept until eventually his head was resting on the table!   This just shows how important armatures are for sculpture. I don't think it matters so  much what the armature is made of but clay is heavy and anything larger than this would definitely need some extra support.

My intention is to use air dry clay as I don't have access to a kiln but this seems to be ordinary polymer clay so it will be an experiment to see how far it dries out on its own.

I am also experimenting with colour and glazes and so far my favourites have been grating soft pastel over the surface (I tried on some old clay reliefs I did a couple of years ago) and then rubbing it in with a bit of water or solvent or just my fingers.  Working on that dried coloured surface with different waxes has so far not been much to my liking but using shellac gives a lovely sheen (see below).

The top two have been given a wax finish and the bottom one a brown shellac but I want to get a clear shellac so that the underneath soft pastel / pigment powder colours below remain pure whenever I want them to.