"Feather"

It's always fun when I get a new bronze from the foundry for the first time!  I've just received "Feather" and it's wonderful to see how he turned out.  He's 9" long x 8" high x 3 3/4" wide including the turned head and flying mane.

 

As you can see, he's available in both bay and silver.  He was intended to be a Pegasus, but after cutting him apart four times to try various armatures for the wings, I decided any wings I put on him would vibrate too much in shipping and damage the horse.  I had one bronze sent to me with no patina on it so I can make wings to fit it and mark where they go on the bronze.  Hopefully doing it that way will work!

If you'd like to see pictures of "Feather" as a work in progress as well as pictures of him with his first set of wings, click here:  "Feather"

Adding a Rider to the Icelandic Sculpture

While it is possible to build an armature for a horse and rider as one piece, I chose to do the rider separately so I can work on her detailing up close without the horse in the way.

As you can see, the horse has progressed a good bit since the last time I posted about her.  Her right hind leg is close to finished as is her right shoulder.  The bulk of her body is pretty much there, I just have to make sure all the depressions are tightly filled so the surface won't collapse if touched, carve away what isn't the horse I'm making and smooth everything out.  Easy, right?  Not when you're working this big!  I'm used to being able to put my hands around the horse's barrel, warming the clay with my hands and smoothing it with my thumbs.  This piece is simply too big to do that.  I'm having to use a lamp and a hairdryer to warm the clay enough that I can smooth it with my hands.  I can carve it down with the tools, but sculpting is in my hands, so I have to run both my fingers and palms over it to see if it feels right to me.

 

The horse has no saddle at the moment, but will by the time I've finished it.  The rider's right leg isn't quite long enough yet and the foot isn't formed at all, but I'm just seeing how the horse and rider fit together here.  

I need to build up the thickness of the rider's legs and arms so she'll be proportionate.  She will have short hair and be wearing a helmet and Kentucky jods (breeches that are boot-cut so she can wear short boots) unless my customer decides she wants to be in different clothes.  I can always add long sleeves if need be and change the style of her pants and boots.

 

As you can see, the horse's right side is more developed and the rider's left side is more developed.  I have pictures of the rider's armature somewhere - maybe in my laptop.  I'll post them when I figure out where I filed them!

The rider's eyeballs are made of harder clay in a different color so I can see what I'm doing when I shape the eyelids, browbone, etc. around them.  The horse's dark eyes are either beads or earrings - I've forgotten now what I used.  I like to use a hard spherical thing as the eyeball so I can build the eye socket properly and not get the eye out of round.  That isn't possible for humans, since the pupil is cut out to make the eyes look alive.  Horses have horizontal, sort of rectangular pupils, not round ones like we have, so their eyes are usually shown as just round, no pupils cut out. 

The direction the horse is looking is shown by the angle of the upper eyelid and the position of the head, neck and ears.  The direction a person is looking is shown by the location of the pupil and iris of the eye, with the pupil cut out (like a bowl, a rounded cut) and the iris either cut out more shallowly for dark eyes, or just scribed on the eyeball for light eyes (like blue eyes, such as my rider has).  The direction a human's eyes are looking is also indicated by the highest arch of the eyelids, since the lens of the eyeball pushes the lid out a little bit.  I haven't carved out my rider's pupils yet. 

This face isn't really a likeness to my customer yet - it's more of a place holder while I get her proportions right.  Once I'm happy with the rest of her, I'll detail the face so it looks like her, then add the hair and helmet.  The line carved down the center of the horse's face is there to help me compare sides to make sure she's symmetrical.

 

Here I'm seeing if she's sitting straight, if her shoulders and knees match (not yet, although the shoulders are close), etc.  I haven't worried about doing a likeness of the horse yet either.  As you can see, her right eye is a bit low.  I've already repositioned both eyes twice to get them at the right height for the size of this horse's head.  Once I move the eye that's in the wrong position (I think that may be the horse's right eye, the one that we see on the left side of the photo), her face will be straight.  Then I can detail her head, finish detailing her neck and the rest of her, and add her saddle.  Her bridle will be added after I add the ears and before I add the massive amount of flying mane this mare's going to have.  Getting things "straight" with each other is one of the hardest things about sculpting, in my opinion.

The rider has two prongs that come out where her seat bones would be located on a real person (dressage riders may chuckle at the idea of how easy it would be to "plug in" if you had such prongs coming out of your seat bones, LOL!).  These prongs are inserted in the horse's back to hold her in place.  When I've finished sculpting the rider and her saddle, I will mark the saddle to show where the rider should sit and will cut off the prongs.  The rider will be sent as a separate piece, not as part of the horse.  Since her armature isn't built as part of the main armature, she would come off the horse in transport if I shipped her mounted on the horse.

Can you tell that the rider's shoulders and head are just a wee bit off?  The head is leaning a little bit to the left and the left shoulder is a little bit high.  By "a little bit" I mean perhaps as little as 1/32nd of a difference.  You'd be amazed how much of a change can be made by carving off a tiny bit of clay or moving something like an eyeball just a tiny bit. I use a mirror and photos I post on my computer to help me see where the errors are.  Sometimes it's hard to see them when I'm looking at the real sculpture.  The artist's eye at some point tends to see what they hope is there, not what's really there.  I've heard this lots of times, mostly about painters, but it's true of sculptors too.  Looking at it backwards (in a mirror), in a photo or even upside down is quite useful in helping you see with fresh eyes.

You can see the mare's frog, heel and hock on the right hind leg.  That shows this leg is nearly done.  A lot of the detail I put in the rear end of the horse will be hidden by the tail, just as a lot of the detail in the neck will be hidden by the mane, but I put it in there so I know it's correct before I add all that hair.  I also need to add feathers to the legs and a beard to the horse's head and throatlatch.  All of that comes much later.

That's where we are for now!  These are "pose approval" photos which I send to my customer for them to approve.  If they like it, they'll send the second payment on the job.  If they want something changed, this is the time for them to tell me or I'll have to charge them extra for the time it takes me to make the change.  All of this is spelled out in my commission contracts.

I hope you're enjoying watching "Tolte" evolve from wires and pipes to a finished bronze!

Changing Writing Instruments Can Freshen Your Writing

In this month's meeting of the writing group I attend, the leader told us to get out our notebooks and pens and said we had to write for 20 minutes with no prompt at all.  (For those who may not know, a "writing prompt" is a first line for a story, or a subject, or an idea to help you get started. For instance, a writing prompt might be, "I hate it when . . ." or "When I opened the door. . ." - something like that.)

It can be very hard to come up with something to write about in a short time like that. Some in the group worked on articles or stories they were already working on while others made up either fiction or non-fiction.

I had no idea what to write, but as soon as he told us to start, three words popped into my head: Ping. Ping. Ping. It was a sound - like a fingernail tapping on glass or the beeping signal from a machine that's it's finished making coffee, or the sound of metal cooling off. I had no idea what was pinging, but those three pings were my start. So I wrote "Ping. Ping. Ping." and then started describing what I see most mornings. In the story, I'm sitting at my kitchen counter working on my laptop while one cat snoozes and the other is rolling around and smiling (my hubby's cat does that a lot) when I hear the pings. I can't figure out where the sound's coming from. It's only three pings, so I go back to what I was doing. A while later, I hear the three pings again.

As I wrote, I kept describing what I was seeing, all very ordinary things. I mentioned in the story that I was working on my sales tax, a very dreary job. When "story me" found out what was making the pings, it was a life-changing event!

In 20 minutes in LONGHAND I wrote nearly 1000 words!! And it's an entertaining read (so far!) and was great fun to write! I transcribed it into the computer last night, cleaning up some messy phrases and changing a word here or there, but really, I didn't do much editing at all.  I was amazed that it was so clearly written the first time through.

The lesson we were supposed to learn from this was that sometimes the freshest writing comes from changing the instruments you use to write. If you're writing longhand, you don't sit and edit yourself as much as you do if writing on a computer. Stopping to edit your work stops the forward motion of the story. The first draft should be written straight through, beginning to end, with no stops for corrections if you can manage it. I know this is true, but lately, I've been spending a lot of time "fixing" the first part of a novel I'm working on. I think it's going to be a good story, but it isn't just flying out of my fingers like others have. This one's more like (*gasp!*) work! Of course, I'm inventing a new world, which makes things more complicated, but I think it's a good read and writing it is interesting to me. My hand cramps if I write by hand very long, and my handwriting is terrible, but perhaps my story would move along faster if I tried handwriting the section I'm stuck on. I just may try it. I'll let you know how it works!

Doing Research for Your Art

I love the forums at http://www.wetcanvas.com.  Artists of all experience and skill levels hang out there and discuss media, techniques, critique each other's work, etc. in a friendly, supportive atmosphere.  I highly recommend WetCanvas to artists of all levels, both amateur and professionals.

A few days ago, I was writing a second critique (at the artist's request) on a colored pencil piece and started getting philosophical about how you should look at horses (or whatever your subject is) in order to portray them in art. At one point, I said, "Sounds like I'm starting a blog post," so here I am, writing that blog post.

When you paint, draw or sculpt something that's alive and you want it to LOOK alive, you need to represent it as accurately as possible.  I'm not saying all art has to be realistic, but if you do something that looks at least somewhat realistic, then the joints and muscles should be in the right placement and position for whatever movement is going on.

"Reflection" (cold-cast porcelain, shown above) certainly isn't built realistically.  The structures in the head and neck are exaggerated or stretched to make the piece an impression of this horse.  Those who know this horse (Reg. name, "Rusted Spruce," show name when my daughter had him, "Imagine A Legacy," barn name "Stretch") recognize him despite his being stylized.  That was my goal, to do a recognizable portrait yet make it unique in its style. And yes, I realize there are errors in this piece, but it was also one of my earliest sculptures, so I was still learning my craft.  Yet despite its flaws, it's a lovely piece, has won awards and sells well.

Too many artists depend only on pictures for reference.  That's fine, but you also need to learn about the subject, whether it's a horse or a human or a cat or a raccoon - whatever it is, it has a particular way its eyes are set (for instance).  Horses, being prey animals (dinner for other animals, in other words), have their eyes on the sides of their heads so they can see behind them as well as in front.  When a horse is grazing, he can see 350 degrees around him.  A predator has his eyes on the front of his face, like a human, a dog, cat, lion, raccoon.  These are species who chase down other animals to be their dinner.  Their range of vision is much smaller than a horse's - 150 degrees for dogs and cats, and a smaller range for humans since our eyes are set more to the front of our heads than they are on dogs and cats.  (Ref:  http://www.mini-horse.org/vision_range.html)

My husband was standing just a bit to the right of center (as he faced my horse Ricos) when he took this photo, which is why the right eye looks bigger than the left.  You need to pay attention to these distinctions when using photos for reference.

You may not be able to see the chipmunk in this sculpture since the photo's small, but this cougar, a predator, has his eyes on the front of his head.  The chipmunk, a prey animal, has them on the sides.  (The chipmunk's on the rock near the bottom and just left of center in case you haven't found him yet.)  This piece is "In the Wind" and is a bronze.  All the art shown here is mine, BTW.

Each species has a particular way of moving.  Horses have four legs, but they don't move the same way cats, dogs or armadillos do.  You need to understand the pattern of footfalls for each species you portray, and in the case of many animals like horses and dogs, you need to know how the breed you're portraying moves.  A dressage horse moves much differently than a Paso Fino, for instance.  A Chinese Crested moves much differently than a German Shepherd.  If you don't have a clear understanding of such things, you may make a bronze or a painting that will last for years and years but is portraying an inaccurate movement, inaccurate tail carriage, the wrong shape and attitude of the animal's ears, etc.  People who know that kind of animal will look at the artwork and shake their heads, wondering why you didn't do enough research to know how much weight that leg should bear at that point in the stride, why you have a Quarter Horse doing a pace instead of a trot, why your Chinese Crested isn't doing a prancing trot, why the German Shepherd isn't built with his haunches lower than his shoulders, etc.

One way to learn about the structure of animals is to go see them in person.  It's even better if you can run your hands over the animal's legs or muscles with your eyes closed as well as with them open, so you can get a real understanding of their structure.  What works for me, and what I recommended to the artist on WetCanvas today, is to find a horse (in this case) that has been bodyclipped (since they're in winter coats now) so the muscles, tendons and bones are as easy to see and feel as possible.  If you can't find a bodyclipped horse, then one with smooth hair over their legs will do.  A horse with feathered legs like "Masestoso" above, isn't what you want to look at for this exercise.  Point of interest about horses with feathered legs:  When examining a Friesian for one of my Friesian sculptures (an earlier piece than this one), I discovered the feathers start at the chestnut - halfway up the forearm, and just below the hock.  I had no idea they started that high until I did my research on a live horse.

 

"Presence" (Bronze, above) has lovely clean legs.  It would be easy to run your hands over them to learn their structures.  Before you start working around the back legs of a horse you aren't familiar with, ask the horse's handler to hold the horse's front leg up to keep the horse still and protect you from being kicked.  Then gently run your hands down his legs, learning the feel of the muscles, tendons and bones and how they work together.  Be sure to cup your palm over the hock bone itself - that point isn't sharp nor is it small.  It's a big, wide bone that will fill your hand.  Remember that when you're portraying it.

Once you've run your hands over his legs, if you're a 2-D artist, sit at eye-level to the horse's hocks, but far enough away that he can't kick you, and draw his leg, paying close attention to the joints, muscles and how everything's tied together.  Have someone lift a back leg and run your hands over that hock joint and the pastern when they're bent, then sit down and draw them.  Do the same for the front legs.  If you're a sculptor, do a quick sketch in clay of the leg you're studying.  You'll be amazed at how much this exercise improves how you portray legs.

Mounting "Just Tryin' to Help" and "Tolte" progress

"Just Tryin' to Help" is a bronze comprised of two related sculptures, a filly and a man.  Both are 1/4 lifesized.  The man is looking directly at the filly when they're arranged correctly, but after seeing how other folks move them around, I decided they needed to be on a base to relate to each other properly.  So my basemaker, Diane Soper of Sistermaide Woodworking in Lewisburg OH, made beautiful bases for me (as usual!) and today we mounted the bronzes.  It took a lot more doing than you might expect - I hold the horse upside down in my lap while she makes a template for the bottom of the bronze, marking where the drilled and tapped holes are inside the bronze's base.  Then she marks the wood and drills the holes and we spend a lot of time trying to line up the hole in the bronze with the hole in the wood from the bottom of the wooden base.  It's a lot more trouble than it sounds like, believe me!  And because it's so much physical labor and hard on both of us, I think I may have the foundry (which is full of big, burly men!) put the base on "Tolte" since it will weigh between 60 and 80 lbs!  Anyway, here are pictures of my beautiful Bitsy baby when she was a little one, and my hubby John, in a scene from real life here on our farm.

 

 

And now more progress on "Tolte."  These pics show progress made as of 12/27/09.

The toothpicks sticking out of her are markers for joints (knee, hock, fetlock) and her eyes, to help me keep things measured correctly.  The small lump of clay at the top of her right shoulder is a note to myself to build that shoulder up more, since her weight is on it (this after a visit from my daughter, Jennifer Truett of Dancing Horse Farm, Lebanon OH - she's a dressage trainer and FEI level rider with a great eye for conformation).  I wasn't really at the point of building that shoulder up yet, but since Jennifer pointed it out, I put a bit of clay there to make sure I wouldn't forget to build it up.  I try to get her to look at my sculptures at least before they  go to  the foundry so someone who knows what to look for can make sure I haven't missed anything!

Yesterday when I went out to the studio, suddenly that right foreleg (the one that's on the ground) looked too far back.  I messed around with the muscle a bit to make sure my eye wasn't being fooled.  It wasn't!  So I had to rip that leg off - yes, that's what I said!  I had to remove the clay that was over the wax, then soften the wax by warming it with a hair dryer.  Once it was warm enough, I could remove the leg and the pad of wax that was holding it in.  Here's the hole after I removed the leg.

I cleaned out the hole, cleaned off the armature wax I would need the next batch of wax to adhere to, and moved the hole in the shoulder forward so the leg would be about 1/4 inch farther forward than it was before.  Here's the horse with her leg replaced.

I still h ave a lot of repair work to do.  I had to cover the shoulder with clay and build it up again (and add the height to it that indicates it's bearing weight, as my daughter pointed out) and repair the sculpting in the leg itself as well as making it stick to the board with some clay. 

The problem with working with wax is that wax chips (bits that get broken off while working with it or while removing clay that's touched it) get into everything, so I spent quite a while picking chips of wax out of the clay.  If I'd left them there, the bronze would have strange-looking bumps and flat spots here and there because of them, which wouldn't be good at all!

Here's the mare with her shoulder repaired and her leg in better shape.

I'm still not happy with her shoulder, but her foreleg is in a better position.  I will double-check the position of her hind legs now that there's enough clay on them for me to have a better idea how all of her parts are going to relate to each other.

 

 

I don't know if I've shown you how I melt the wax.  I use metal cake pans on electric griddles.  I have to be careful to not get it too hot.  The lump you see here is the wax I removed from her shoulder, which I used in her shoulder again once it had softened enough to work with.

And that's where I am now.  Her barrel needs to be filled out a bit on the bottom so it's evenly round and I have to check those back legs, but overall, she's getting into decent shape.  Before I get too detailed on her, I'll have to start her rider.  That's another blog for another day . . .

"Tolte" work in progress

This is the piece I wrote about before, when I was showing how I was doing a different kind of armature than I normally do.  She's a lot farther along now than these pictures show, but I haven't had time to take newer pics of her yet.

After working on her for a while, I realized that pushing on her to add clay was making her armature twist on its post.  I should've glued the post into the floor flange as well as the plumbing T.  Normally, wax should hold the T in place with no problem, but I'm pushing the piece pretty hard, so cold wax could crack and loosen.  Super Glue to the rescue!

I cut her belly open (not such a huge job since she's still mostly a silhouette,  not filled out much at all) to expose the bottom of the plumbing T and cleaned the wax off the metal at the bottom and up inside the T a bit so the glue would be attaching metal to metal, not metal to wax.  It wouldn't be as strong a seal if the glue attached metal to wax.  To get to the bottom of the T so I could put the glue inside the place where the T meets the pipe, I had to lay the horse over on her side.

 

Once I got the glue in place, using a toothpick to apply it, the piece could be set upright again and I could go back to work.  I think you'll see in the following pictures that I added clay to the wax around the bottom of the leg wires to help anchor them to the table.  There will be a whole patch of ground under the horse, so once I have that in place, the feet will be secure.  With my normal aluminum wire armature, I just staple the wires in place to be secure, but with this heavy copper wire, that's not possible.

I scraped back the clay at the shoulders and hips until I reached the wax so the wax I'm using to hold the leg wires in place will stay put.  Wax makes a strong bond to other wax, but its bond to clay is not as strong.  The legs are firmly in place now. 

The horse is still much thinner than she will be when she's finished, but I made sure I built the wax and clay up so her legs are coming out at the right part of her body.  They aren't set too far inside nor too close to the surface.  More clay will be added over the wax.  Here's how it looks:

I know it looks like the leg bones are too far back in the front leg that's on the ground and too far forward in both back legs, but I promise  you, once the muscle's on it, they will prove to be in the right place!  And if they aren't, I'll move them until they are!

Here she is after I covered the wax with clay:

She's still skinny, but we're making progress!  Here's how she looked a day later:

I've laid on enough clay to thicken her body quite a bit.  I know there are some proportions that are wrong for now, and the line of her back/loin/croup isn't the best, but I'm getting there!

I have clay down the length of some of her legs now.  I'll take more pictures and show you her progress again soon.

From book to stage or film

We were in New York City for Thanksgiving (saw the Macy's Parade up close and personal!) and saw "Wicked" while we were there.  It was WONDERFUL!  Fabulous singers, interesting set design, good acting, great acoustics in the Gershwin Theater.  I was familiar with the play only from the soundtrack, which I love, being a singer myself.  I highly recommend the show.  It's great fun!

What I don't recommend is reading the book "Wicked" before seeing the play.  They bear nearly no resemblance to each other.  Those of you who know me at all know that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so I know that plays/films and the novels they come from often are quite different, but "Wicked" is SO different!  Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) is goodhearted in both of them until fate turns her around, but in the book, she's a political activist of sorts, fighting for the rights of Animals (sentient animals) among other things.  That isn't the case at all in the play, which is much more about the friendship between Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda.  The personalities and motivations of several of the characters is hugely different between the book and the play.

I have read a quote from the book's author, Gregory Maguire, that he's very pleased with how they interpreted his story in the play, and I'm sure it's more profitable as a play the way they wrote it than it would be if they'd stuck closer to the book.  I think they did the right thing in how they reinterpreted the story for the play.

Since seeing "Wicked" on stage and reading the story, I am not as critical as I used to be of Steve Kloves, who did the screenplays for all but one of the Harry Potter films.  Kloves has kept his screenplays (the ones we've seen so far anyway - all but "Deathly Hallows") much closer to the books, and his characters, except for Hermione in several of the films, have all  been very close to what J.K. Rowling wrote to start with.  (Kloves uses Hermione as an "information dump" in several pictures, often giving her lines that were the boys' lines in the books, which annoys me greatly.  There's no benefit in her saying those lines rather than the boys that I can see, and by doing this, Kloves has made me really dislike Hermione - which is not Emma Watson's or J.K. Rowling's fault.  Kloves gets all the blame for this.)

I haven't done close comparisons between books and the plays or films that resulted from them in quite a while, other than my obvious attention to the Potter books and films.  Seeing "Wicked" and then reading it really made me wonder if authors who see their work performed on stage or in film think "Why didn't I think of that" or "Why didn't I do it that way?" or "I'm glad they paid me a bundle for this because I can't stand what they've done to it!" 

J.K. Rowling has every reason to be pleased both artistically and financially with the results of her collaboration with Kloves, Warner Brothers, David Heyman, et al.  Maguire seems pleased with what they did with "Wicked," but the changes are so vast, I just have to wonder how he really felt when he first saw it? 

When I write, I see my stories as films in my head.  If any of them make it to the stage or film, will they resemble what I wrote at all?  And how will I feel about it?

If you want to read about the process of going from book to stage, there's a book called "Wicked, the Grimmerie" which tells how it went from idea to novel to screenplay that didn't work to play that did.  It's interesting reading.  I bought a used copy of it on Amazon and have greatly enjoyed it.

If and when I have to face one of my stories as a film or play, I'll let you know what I think about the changes they made!

The New Armature, step by step

I live in Ohio but my bronze foundry is in Oregon, which means I have to make my armatures very strong in order to withstand shipping that far.  Remember, UPS doesn't pay any attention when a box is marked "UP" or "Fragile"!!  If it won't withstand a drop of four feet onto concrete they won't pay for damages, so my pieces have to be built and packed as well as possible.

Because this piece (working title:  "Tolt") is so large (25" high by 28" long, IIRC), I don't think the normal aluminum armature would be strong enough, so I did a slight variation on Karen Kasper's type of armature.  I used a galvanized pipe screwed into a floor flange on the bottom and BOLTED, not screwed, to the working surface so it won't break loose in shipping (that happened once - it was a nightmare but the piece was saved anyway!).  A galvanized T is put on top of that - I'm using 3/8" pipe here.  I used two 45 degree "street elbows" on the T, which is the beginning of Karen's style of armature.  I used 1/4" thick copper wire for the basic framework and the brace for the neck.  Instead of dipping the armature pieces in wax as Karen does, I put the warmed wax on with a putty knife.  The surface is lumpy but that shouldn't be a problem.

 

I built up softened wax (warmed in a baking pan on top of an electric griddle set to 200 degrees at first, then lowered to "warm" when the was started to get warm) to bulk up the form and strengthen the armature.  I'll still be able to move the armature a little bit once I get that done, but it won't be long before it will be locked in place.  I'll make adjustments as I add wax and clay.

The bump and dip in front of the tail (to the left) indicate where the horse's buttocks should end.  I hope you can see that I stopped short of building the wax that far back.  I did that to allow room to install the leg armature (that comes later with this type of armature) and to insert toothpicks for the length and width of the back of the horse. Toothpicks don't insert into wax well.

I use an oil-based clay called plastilene (some brands are marked "plasticene").  This brand is Classic Clay, and this is the soft, tan version.  They have a chocolate brown clay as well, but I can't see detail in it as well as I can in the light clay.  I have carpal tunnel, so soft clay is much easier on my hands.

Classic comes in 12 lb. slabs.  I get my husband to cut it in thin slices with a machete - honestly that's the best tool for the job, we've found after a lot of experimenting.  If the slices are too thick for me to manage easily, I run them through a pasta machine (with the noodle cutter removed) to condition, thin and soften the clay.

Shown above is another softening method - a light bulb shining on the clay.  I often use a Styrofoam cooler with a light bulb inside it (15 watts - it doesn't have to be high wattage) with the sliced clay in trays stacked in the cooler.  This softens the clay so it's malleable and easy to apply to the armature.

Here I've laid clay over the wax and pressed it in hard.  If you don't press it in, you'll get soft spots that may sink later on, so if you can't press it with your thumbs or hands, use a wooden tool to press it in well.  Unlike water-based clay, it won't damage the clay if you have air pockets, because this clay is never fired.  (Water-based clay with air pockets in it usually breaks in the kiln.)  I've included the pop can on my sculpture stand so you can get an idea of the scale of this piece.

 

This is the view from the front.  I'm building up the silhouette of the horse and will insert toothpicks to show me how thick I need to make the various parts.  Each of my sculptures is made to measure, an actual scale model of the horse, until I get about two-thirds of the way through sculpting.  Then I let the art take over and the horse may not be to scale anymore, but he will be more dynamic and lifelike than he would've been if I'd stuck strictly to the measurements.  Other people can do scale models that turn out beautifully, but that's just not the way I work.  My pieces are more like an impression of reality than tight reality.  I don't do a lot of veining because the horse is normally in motion, and you can't see the veins clearly on a moving horse.  I figure the veins being detailed stops the motion of the horse, so I don't do them except the big Y-shaped one on the face, and I don't always include that.

 

Here you can see the layers of clay I've added on teh back and near the bottom of the chest.  I will press them together with a wooden tool then blend the edges with my thumbs or a tool.  The toothpics are markers showing where I'm going - how thick each part needs to be.  There are none on the  head and neck because I'll do those later.

Here the little Icelandic mare is built up some more - yes, her back is not shaped right, but I'll get there, don't worry!  She will have a saddle and rider, so I don't have to be as careful with the shape of her back as I would for a "nekked horse" :D  (a horse at liberty).

She's gotten thicker side to side as well as vertically.  I will start building her thickness after I get her silhouette roughed in at about the right size.

Showing the layers of clay I've added to her neck and head.  I'm not worrying very much yet about getting their shape right  - I'm just laying on clay in an approximation of the way it should be.  Once I have the body bulked out to the end of the toothpics, as it is on her back, chest and rump right now (that's why you don't see those toothpicks anymore - they're surrounded by clay), I'll make sure the clay is well pressed-on, then I'll beat it with a small board (a 1" x  1/2" works for me) to compact it (yes, I will!).  I'll smooth it out with my thumbs and with tools and then I'll get serious about shaping it the way it should be to be the horse I'm sculpting.

If you have questions, feel free to ask me.  Please don't post this anywhere without giving me credit - this page is COPYRIGHT Lynda Sappington 2009 and will be used both on my website (Equine Art by Lynda Sappington) and in the third edition of my how-to-sculpt book, "Sculpting 101: A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" Second Edition (available from me as well as The Compleat Sculptor, NYC, various libraries, Amazon.com and other bookstores).

I will be teaching a sculpting workshop in New York next May (see sidebar for info).  I won't be teaching how to make this particular armature, but the lessons will be similar - some demonstration, some explanation and as much personal help as needed.  If you'd like to try sculpting or would like to improve your skills, come to my workshop!