Animal Sculpture

This year I am taking an art class with my good friend Amanda. Our teacher is a quirky, middle-aged mom who always finds fun projects for us to do. Over the past few weeks, we have been creating animal sculptures out of wire, newspaper, and clay. When the sculptures are complete they will be painted and then taken home to show our families. I was intrigued by the techniques that we used; I decided to write a short "how to.." to share them with all of you!

1. My animal choice was originally a fox, but when i finished this step it looked more like a pig. The body I made didn't have too much shape other than a large oval.Take thick wire and try to make a shape that somewhat resembls the shape of the animal's body.

2. Use the same technique for the head and all of the limbs. Try to show movement by putting one front and one back leg forward and the other two legs back as if the animal were walking. Also, create some sort of hip structure for the legs to attatch to so that they are more 3-dimensional than the body itself. If the legs are attatched diretly to the body, the creature will not be able to stand up because the space between each pair of legs will be too small. For the head, you can just tirn it to the side or face us to make the creature a little more interesting.

3. Next, fill the big wire shapes with newspaper pieces to give yourself a surface to put the clay on. Be careful of the amount of newspaper because if you put too much on, you won't have much room to add a lot of clay. When you have put your desired amount of newspaper throughout the large wire, wrap a smaller wire around the whole thing to keep the newspaper from falling out. You can use tape to keep the small wire from poking out if you need to.

4. Now it's time to add the clay! Technique depends on the type of clay, and in this case I would recommend using a soft, self-hardening clay. When using this you will want to wet your fingers because it makes fashioning the clay much easier. Once the clay is on you can wet it again and gently stroke it to make any changes.

5. Be careful to keep your eye on the bottom of the legs and the underneath of your animal; clay tends to not want to stick around those areas. If this happens, wet your fingers and gently caress the clay back together.

6. When you are satisfied with your animal, leave it out to dry for about a day, and then it is time to paint.

7. My class used oil paints. We did not paint realistically, but painted colorful patterns in stead. This is all a matter of your own creative tastes, painting is really up to you.

8. Enjoy!