So, I had been working on my current sculpt ‘A New Guardian Angel‘ and the face was complete and ready to be cured in the oven. I was happy with all the details and was very excited to cure the head and be able to move on to the next phase of the sculpt.
Now this is where the learning experience kicked in …. I read the curing / baking instructions for the clay I was using (Sculpey III) and it basically stated to cure the clay @ 15mins per 1/4 inch so naturally I baked for 30mins @ the recommended 275 degrees.
This clay is much lighter than the Sculpey I had used on the previous practice heads I had sculpted so I should have taken that into consideration but it was my first time curing something other than Sculpey so that detail went overlooked. After I cured the final head from the Sculpey III for 30mins the head was very translucent with many, many moonies that you could see deep in the clay which in my eyes pretty much destroyed it as you can see:
After this occurred, I thought, “I’ll put these other practice heads in for a bake @ only 15mins instead of 30 and see if it makes a difference.” and boy did it !
A noticeable difference (keeping in mind that the first clay was the Translucent Color and the second image was the Beige Color clay, so there were major differences) with first of all the “solid” look and not looking so “see-through”, then the smaller amounts of moonies. I was much more pleased with the results of the second clay (Sculpey) than the first clay (Sculpey III). So now I know to always bake / cure in smaller time increments and work my way up for more manageable and accurate results.
This is a prime example of why as a Sculptor, you have to try all types of clay to find which clay has the properties that better suite your method of sculpting and that yield the results you want and envision.
Comments