Make a Sculpture & Sculpture Stand

I visit galleries on a regular basis and love the simple black stands that many small sculptures are mounted on. This is my attempt to replicate the look in a simple and inexpensive way.

SUPPLIES
styrofoam
skewer or dowel
acrylic paint
aluminum foil
Creative Paperclay®

Cut square out of styrofoam. Apply Creative Paperclay to the top and sides. Depending on how heavy your sculpture will be, it might be necessary to make a hole in the bottom and add a weight.



















To get a nice smooth surface, lay plastic wrap over the clay and brayer flat. Smooth corner with water if necessary. Let dry. Sand with sandpaper or Sandits if necessary.

 Apply wood skewer or dowel to the styrofoam and glue in place. Paint surface black to replicate the black metal stands you see in galleries.

I love birds so that became my sculpture concept.

Make a shape with aluminum foil and blocked in the head with the clay. Next, I painted it black and added some detail. It was then glued to the top of the skewer.

Make your own sculpture and stand.

Dream in color.

Darlene Olivia McElroy

Halloween Prop Fall Decoration Decapitated Vampire Head by LuLu Lancaster

Hello and Happy Fall! This is LuLu lancaster and I have a spooky cool Project for you.

This is really simple and can be made in a day :)

All you need is a craft store styrofoam head, 

Creative PaperClay®

Acrylic paints~I used brown, black, white and red

 a paint brush and Gesso

some cheesecloth for the base if you like :)

Start with a plain styro head

using acrylic paints that are watered down start shading the head

You want your paint to be nice and wet and stay wet ;)

once you have your shading done 

start guessing the head blending in the acrylic paint. Cover the entire head.

This will also give your clay something to grab ahold of.

Let the gesso dry completely.

Once dry start adding clay to the head. You will be creating hair so add clay in areas hair would be ;)

using your fingers drag the clay down the head to create the loom of hair. You can also use the end of your paintbrush to make "finer" hair.

Create two ear shapes out of clay and attach to the sides of the head.

You can easily do this with you fingers and some water or using the wrong end of your paintbrush.

create gangs with 2 small triangles of clay. 

create an upper lip by rolling a small lip size log. 

Attach with your finger and a little bit of water.

shape the lip by smoothing onto the head and allow to dry.

Once dry paint the hair and create eyebrows if you like :) I added a widows peek.

Once dry you can place on your table with a little cheesecloth loosely fitted around the base :D

Thank you so much for following along! I hope you have enjoyed this project and create some decapitated heads of your own!

LuLu

LuLusApple Dolls

Gloriann Irizarry's Drying Your Clay Tips for Creative Paperclay®

Many Drying tips and techniques for different armatures and cores.

Drying times can be affected by altitude, weather,  humidity and armature type used.

Have in mind the best way for your clay sculpture to be strong is by having the clay dry evenly.

This will reduced the amount of cracking on your piece.

If you use Styrofoam you should never place it in the oven to dry your sculpt.

Styrofoam when it melts it will produced toxic gases. This is not safe to be exposed to.

Also if you try to rush the drying process with ovens or heaters the clay will not dry evenly. Drying the clay with heaters or ovens will produce more cracks and opening that will need to be repair and cover up . 

But Styrofoam ball are great to use. I like them because they reduce the amount of clay consumption.

 It will allow you to sculpt more with the less clay. I like to used them on my Ball Joint Dolls heads. Is very nice because it will give you a great base to work and you can easily cut it in half to add the other details to the piece. I allow the piece to dry normally.

If you want to lower the drying time with out hurting your pieces. Specially on those high humidity places. I can recommend a homemade  Creative Paperclay® drying booth method I use. 

Is very easy to make and it will help your pieces to dry properly. 

Materials:

Book shelf unit.You can use a old bookshelf unit. 

A portable or small dehumidifier unit. 

 I can be a use one, garage bought or check your thrift store. All you need it to make sure it works safely. The one on the photo is from Target  Eva-Dry Electric Petite Dehumidifier (EDV-1100) 



Painter's plastic sheets

DuckTape

Instructions:

Seal the painters sheet to the book shelf using the duck tape.

Make sure you place the dehumidifier next to the book shelf and cover it with the painters plastic sheets.

Create a door opening for you to load your sculpt and pieces to dry.

See the drawing for build reference.

More armatures and safe drying techniques I like to use is the wires, foil and masking tape. 

I favor this method for non moving parts Art Dolls Sculptures.

If your sculpting big pieces I strongly recommend it to be sculpt in layers and make sure the are fully dry before a new one layer is added. Doing this not only will ensure the project is properly dry but it will also be a lot stronger sculpt.

Built your armature with wires. Cover with aluminum foil and secure it with masking tape.

Start Layers one and wait to be completely dry.

Layer  two and wait to completely dry.

Layer three and keep doing this until your satisfy.

Between each step I place the sculpt in the homemade drying unit to get all the humidity out of the piece.

It works great, you will love how much even and faster your projects will dry. 

I hope you like these quick drying tips. More to come shortly so please stay tune . 

Any questions feel free to email me at 

Gloriann@byglori.com

http://byglori.com/sample-page/m

www.byglori.com

Sincerely, 

Gloriann Irizarry