Ceramics / Developments

During this session, I aimed to learn two new techniques in creating the whale shape, and also maintaining a smooth texture. Although I want the belugas to have character, a level of quality and professionalism must be sustained.

The two techniques were very useful in teaching me how to create smoother shapes.

The first included rolling out a section of clay using a rolling pin and two sticks, and then laying this rolled out clay over the top of newspaper, moulded into the desired shape. Then you cut around this, and have half of the 'body'. They must then be connected by making small crosses on the sides and using a mixture of clay and water to stick the two together. This can be reformed to create a smoother form.

The second technique included making balls out of the clay which were then made hollow by shaping, and formed together in a similar way to the first technique.

The first was more useful as I just needed to roughly shape the newspaper into the shape I wanted and went from there, however, free forming the shapes by just modelling is my preferred method.

During the session I also learned techniques to make models smoother by using the pottery equipment which definitely helped my next batch of belugas. These belugas will be simply fired and remain matte instead of glazing, to see how this looks in comparison.

Above I made a smoother beluga similar to the first one, a fat sitting beluga and a (badly done) beluga head.


After the firing process they looked like this:

They are much smoother and look more squishy which is something I'd like to achieve.  I'd like to redo the sitting beluga as he is a bit crispy and not smooth on the tail. This was due to the clay becoming a bit dry over the day. The next developments will explore more techniques within ceramics to see if I can add colour or a different glazing method. I also feel comfortable enough to begin production of the branding section of this brief.