Following are pictures of the terra cotta ("water clay") mural, "Under the Sea," a commissioned piece for the Wolfe School in Monroe NC. The mural is being produced in three panels of two feet by three feet each, to be mounted together in a 3' x 6' mural. The pictures are shown to show the process of creating the work after the initial sculpting. Since this is water-based clay, the clay must be laid on carefully, making sure no air bubbles are trapped. It must be maintained in a moist condition so it won't dry out before you've finished sculpting it. The working surface shown is marine plywood (the panel the mural will eventually be mounted on) covered with an old bed sheet cut just slightly larger than the board, stretched tightly and stapled in place on the back side of the board. The sheet gives you a good surface to work against, but is also porous enough to allow the clay to start the drying process. When each work session is completed, the entire mural is misted with water, wet rags or towels are applied to the outmost edges to keep them moist, then dry cleaning bag plastic is draped over the entire project. Air is squeezed out and weights put around the sides of the plastic to seal the moisture in. By wetting and wrapping water clay this way, you can keep a piece workable for months at a time, if you're really careful.
This is a picture of the plan for the mural. I've changed the outer two panels,
so the dolphin and ray will be on the left side, adn the left-hand panel will
be on the right. Or I may just put the right hand panel to the left of the other
two as they sit right now. I'll know which way looks best when I have the actual
panels all sculpted and mounted on their individual boards. The first panel
I sculpted was the one on your right, the dolphin and ray. As I worked, I decided
to change the position of the dolphin to a profile view so it would look more
familiar to the children, and wouldn't require as high a relief as this head-on
view. One of the criteria for the mural is a safety precaution -- it needs to
not have any "ledges" where the children can grab on and pull themselves
up. So the sculpture will contain all be fairly low reliefs, but with lots of
texture and interesting shapes. I also made the ray bigger in the actual sculpture.
This
is the entire first panel of the mural, measuring 2' x 3'. The dolphin is at
the left, which is the top of the panel. The background (water) is from 1/2"
to 3/4" thick, with "ripples" built in by varying the pressure
of my fingers as I applied and smoothed the clay. The piece is solid clay with
no armature. The ray's head is about 1 1/2" thick at this point and must
be hollowed out, along with part of the center of his body, and the dolphin's
body, each of which is over 1" thick. Any clay over 1" thick will
crack in a kiln, or possibly explode, so it needs to be thinned to under 1"
thick.
To check the thickness of the clay, you insert a needle from the front, while
you're working (since you can't turn it over), or from the back while you're
hollowing it out. Only the surface hole needs to be filled after this test --
the needle hole in the back will actually help allow gases to escape during
firing.
In this picture, you see part of the ray's head being hollowed out (after it's
been cut into tiles) and the needle inserted to check the depth. You shove the
needle in until you feel it coming out the other side (or if you started from
the top, you shove it in until it hits the work surface on the bottom of the
clay). Put your thumbnail at the point where the needle and clay meet, then
pull the needle out. Measure this lenght to see how thick your clay is. If your
clay is really wet, you'll see the color of the clay on the needle. When hollowing,
you want to leave 1/2" of wall around the hollow in order to attach the
tile to the mounting board.
Here
you can see the panel cut into tiles. Each tile has to be 6" or less on
a side. Tiles over six inches on a side tend to warp or crack. I don't like
the look of "regular" tiles, so I varied the size and shapes of the
tiles to follow the lines of the sculpture somewhat.
I
used a food chopper along with a clay knife to lift the tiles (only the chopper is shown here). You must lift them flat -- the clay has a "memory,"
and if you curl it to lift it, it will go back to being somewhat curled when
it's fired, so I'm told. I was very careful to lift the pieces as flat as possible
and keep them flat while working on them.
The
corners of the tiles must be rounded in order to save trouble if the piece does manage to warp while drying or firing. Also, rounded corners are easier to fit
together. I also trimmed the sides of the tiles and rounded the top edges a
bit just to avoid having sharp edges that might scratch the children who will
be using this mural as a tactile and visual experience.
Here you see the mural tile
being trimmed with a clay knife. Look closely at the front edge of the tile,
and you'll see the crumbs created from carving the texture onto the bottom.
That's what I'm trimming away here. This flat tile is part of the water background
of the panel.
A
rake tool (with teeth cut in to the edge) is used to create texture on the back
of each tile in order for the adhesive to have a good surface to bond to when
the tiles are mounted.
Each
tile is numbered to enable easy reassembly. The number shown is "L 10"
-- "L" because this is the left panel of the three parts of the mural,
and "10" because it's the 10th piece from the bottom left corner,
which is where I started lifting the tiles.
The
thick parts of the mural are laid in a "nest" made of shredded paper
wrapped in newspaper and masking tape, formed into a bagel shape, covered with
dry cleaner's plastic. This nest helps protect the sculpting on the top of the
tile while the bottom is being hollowed out. This kind of nest is used for all
kinds of terra cotta sculptures, not just for mural tiles. The tile shown is
most of the head of the ray. A loop tool is used to hollow out the thick portion.
I hold my hand under the tile to feel where the thick portions are so I won't
cut through a thin part. I can also poke through the thick parts with a needle
from the front of the tile, poking into the back, to make a "map" of where I need to carve. If I do make a mistake and cut through the tile, wetting
the clay and then refilling the hole without trapping any air bubbles is still
possible at this stage. This work is all done while the clay is still fairly
moist, before it gets to the "leather hard" stage. The clay taken
out of the interior is wet enough to put back in the clay supply bag and use
again whenever needed.
Here
you see the mural at leather-hard stage, with a couple of days of drying to
do before it can be fired. The thick parts have been hollowed out, the tiles
all have their edges trimmed, corners rounded, and texture and numbers on the
back. The next step is firing, which will be done at Cornell Studio Supply,
Dayton Ohio. After that, I'll apply a white underglaze, then colored underglazes
to create the colors of the animals, and a special glaze with crystals in it
to make the water. There will be a clear glaze over the underglazes. Underglazes
don't soften detail the way regular glazes do, which is why I chose them. The
white underglaze will give me a white surface under the colored glazes, so the
colors will be as vibrant as possible.
To transport the dry tiles to the place where they will be fired, a small roll of paper towel was inserted between each tile. Then the tiles and the 3/4" marine plywood board they're on were all snuggly wrapped in bubble wrap and duct tape.
A friend came over to help me carry this up from the basement without tilting it. I drove veeeerrrrrryyyyy carefully over to Cornell's Studio Supply in Dayton, Ohio, where the piece will be fired. The panel was delivered safely today, 13 March 2001. One panel gone to be bisque fired, the second one is already underway. The sailfish is pretty much sculpted on the second panel already, and the turtle and coral reef and a few other details are sketched into the clay. Onward!!
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Page last modified 7 March 2001.