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Sculpting in Porcelain All Holiday Ornaments Angels and Figurines are Hand Sculptured
high-fired Porcelain. Working in Porcelain full time is what I do and
I've been doing for over 20 years. All of my work is designed, hand
formed, glazed and fired by me in Florida. I do not have any studio
assistants, helpers or even elves.....About Porcelain
Porcelain
is a ceramic material made by firing China clay and China stone in a
kiln at temperatures in the region of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. The
resulting material is hard, strong, glassy and durable . Usually white
or off-white, porcelain comes in both glazed and unglazed varieties,
with bisque, fired at a high temperature, representing the most popular
unglazed variety. Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares
do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids and for the
most part are glazed for decorative purposes and to make them resistant
to dirt and staining. Simply speaking the difference between porcelain
and ceramics is that the porcelain is translucent, which allows light to
penetrate and hard and very strong.
A step by step photo essay of how these ornaments are made,
from the sculpting through the kiln firings.
Today, I am sculpting Angels.
First, I get out a lump of porcelain clay, work it a bit to remove air bubbles and then roll it out with my roller.
 
The clay is cut with a small knife into a rectangle for the skirt. I
then fold and gather the top edge around its self into a circle.
Sleeves for arms are made from cone shapes, and attached to the body with wet clay slip.
Then a circle of clay and another cone are added to the top of the dress and neck. Wings are then shaped.
 
 Wings are attached to the back of the body, 
Then I get out the flesh colored clay and make feet, hands and a head. The feet are attached under the skirt…
 
Then the head is shaped… eye holes are made… eyeballs!
 Tiny aren’t they?
 highlights placed into eyes
 I mixed some brown and yellow clay together to make a light brunette hair
There now, isn’t she cute?, but she still needs details….
small roses are made from pink clay. Green leaves are added to the dress….
I decided she needed a little dove friend….
 
Now she is done being sculpted, she waits for about 2 weeks to
throughly dry out, and is bisque fired in a kiln, hand glazed then
re-fired to 2246 degrees, to a fine porcelain china. 14k gold will be
applied to her halo.
Watch for upcoming photos
9/5/08-Glazing
Ok, today the pieces that are in the kiln were glazed, including this little Angel.
First I open the kiln cautiously, in case of any explosions, It looks like a perfect bisque firing.
Ok, then I unload the kiln, while inspecting each piece for faults,
cracks, then dip them in hot wax. If you don’t do this, when putting on
the glaze, it makes it much harder to get the glaze off of the bottom
of your piece. (If you ever have noticed on any porcelain piece you may
own that anything that touches the kiln shelf must not have any glaze
on it, and you can’t stilt porcelain, so the bottom rim of your
porcelain china will not have any glaze on it.)
 Waxing
The work is then dipped into the clear glaze…
 dipping into glaze bucket
Then they dry out on paper,
the wax is wiped clean and the work is placed back into the kiln to
be fired to 2600 degrees.The firing will take about 12 hours, then the
kiln must be completely cool before opening or hairline cracks will
appear on the work. So sometime tomorrow I open the kiln an see what I
get.
 kiln
9-15-08
Ok, the work is ready to have the gold applied, and this is how I do
it. First of all the second glaze firing is done. The pieces are
unloaded and inspected for faults.
Here is our little angel again, after glazing, before gold, the gold
is painted on, it is real gold in a liquid form that burns out in the
next firing. Its called an over-glaze, because it is put on top of
existing glaze, which makes it shiny, and then fired again on.
The work also gets another overglaze, called mother of pearl which I
add to the wings of angels and I also add it to my fantasy figurines,
such as the mane and tail of the unicorn. It produces a lovely
iridescent color.
As you can see from the photos, I try to do a lot of pieces at the
same time, to conserve on my electric usage of the kiln. I also am very
detail oriented, I enjoy adding all sorts of details to my work, from
making sure the back of my designs are made just as good as the front, I
add feet under the dresses, the back of wings and roses are mother of
pearled.
The work is placed back in the kiln and low fired to 1156 degrees
Fahrenheit.This firing takes only around 5 hours. After the kiln has
cooled I get to see what I have made.
My Angel
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~Scott Adams
No, not real chocolate, but brown colored Labrador retrievers.I
thought I would show how I work on some ornaments. I usually spend one
day a week mixing up clay and making clay colors. Some colors are more
difficult to make and to use. Mixing up black and brown are difficult
due to the amount and type of stains used in the clay body. Brown is
difficult due to the fact that it is hard to remove the stain from your
hands, which gets on all of the other colors I use .
You can see the brown stain all over the finders as I sculpt. I have
towels and water handy at all times and have to change the sculpting
cloth as soon as I am done with the color.
After I have made a couple I add on the color details.
As you can see, my fingers were not clean enough when adding the angel
wings, just touching the brown before adding the white transfers the
stain. So I start over and remove the wing and replace it.
My idea of an assembly line!
I usually only make a few at a time, and I try to make them all
different, otherwise, I would go insane! These little dogs must dry a
couple of weeks, then go in the kiln to be bisque fired, clear
glazed, then re-fired to porcelain temperatures of 2400 degrees! Thanks
for looking at how I make these little critters.
Sculpting Larger Works in Porcelain
Today I am going to show how I sculpt a larger work than in my
previous posts. I have only shown up to now how to sculpt smaller works
that don’t need hollowing out due to their small size, when working with
a larger piece of clay, the work need to be sculptured differently.
I have decided today to make a river otter. I found some really cool
pieces of driftwood that I would like to use in my sculpts, and for some
reason, an otter seemed like the best fit for a piece of wood I have.
I use several a good reference books depicting muscle/bone structures
of my subject is invaluable for creating a good sculpture.
Do not start on details here, you just want general form until the entire sculpture is laid out.
 fitting shape At this point , I just want a rough shape of how I want Mr. Otter to
look and fit on his peice of driftwood. Next, the hard part, after he
has firmed up a bit, about 15 minutes depending on the clay body and how
wet you work, the work need to be sliced in half.
Hollowing out the center The sculpture need to be hollowed out to a point where there is no
more than 1/2 ” thick of clay at any point. More than that will lead to
cracking and blowing out of clay walls.The piece is scored which
involves roughing up the clay surfaces which will be joined back
together and adding a clay slip (really runny clay).
 Scoring the clay Then you put the two pieces back together by adding clay and slip as needed to the joints.
Once the entire sculpture is laid out, start on the main muscle
masses of the sculpture. Do not finish any sections too soon, you will
most likely have to change things as you go. For example – The head was
too rounded and the back leg stretched out wrong.
Note – if the clay begins to dry out while your are sculpting, use a
spray bottle to mist the clay and keep it pliable. Do not overspray the
clay or it will sag. When the sculpture will not be worked on for a
length of time (10 or more minutes) it is advisable to cover it with a
plastic bag so it will not dry out.
This picture shows most of the facial details in tact. There are
still areas of the sculpture that need to be modified, always consult
your reference material when in doubt. A great help to me is working on
a turntable so can easily view my sculpt from any angle.
 I
add and remove clay until until the otter comes to life for me, I know
when it is time to add finishing details, when it just looks and feels
right, by adding and subtracting clay from here and there.
The lumps of clay beneath the sculpture is used as a support until
the work dries enough to support itself. Once the sculpture is completed
and before it is allowed to dry out, you need to punch some holes
through the sculpture to make sure there are no air pockets.
The colors a
Using the needle tool, punch holes in the thicker areas of your
sculpture, making sure to reach the newspaper underneath. Do this on
large muscle masses and anywhere else that the clay feels thick. You
cannot be too cautious on this step, it is better to create too many
holes than not enough. Even one tiny air pocket can damage are destroy
your sculpture. Be sure to cover all punch holes and then wrap the
sculpture in a plastic bag to dry VERY slowly. The worst mistake that
people make is rushing the drying time, for a piece this size i will
wait at least a month before it gets fired, if fired too soon, the work
will break and it won’t survive the firing. It should be dry when it no
longer feels cool to the touch.
If you can see the slight changes in the clay color body, lighter
under the chin and stomach, I use different colored clay bodies in my
work, each color is worked into the clay body, not painted on after
firing. The colors are achieved by using a technique called color
inclusions, which mix chemical stains directly into the clay body. He
has a blackish brown upper body and lighter cream color underneath. The
clay won’t show the true colors until the work has been fired and I use a
clear glaze to seal and finish the work.
Sculpting Large, another approach
Another way to sculpt a large figurine without slicing it in half and
hollowing it out is to use an armature. But, because I am not making
castings with molds, my armature has to burn out in the kiln firing,
otherwise the sculpture will crack through the armature. So, This time, I
actually made a newspaper sculpt of a manatees’ form. The newspaper
will totally burn out in the first firing of the clay body. You can see
in the picture, that I rolled out the clay flat first with an ordinary
rolling pin.
I then wrap the porcelain around the armature, making sire no area is
larger than 1/3′ inch thick. I sart making the shapes, adding his
flippers.
The details are added, using many photos of manatees for reference.
yes, that is a black cat sitting behind the sculpt.
I have added air holes on his underside so he won’t blow up in the kiln, now he sits and dries out, waiting to be fired. I really like how he came out, here are a couple of pictures
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