Clay Sculpture

Birds of the Cosmos

For this project, we were instructed to create a figure out of clay and create a design on it. My idea from the very beginning was to create a bird with space designs on it. This is because the idea that inspired this piece of art is a story I have created, the same story with the character Alia which I drew for two projects back in 2D design. In the same story, a little carved bird serves as a symbol of hope as Alia has to travel a great distance across space. The smaller bird would serve as a representation of the one in the story, while the larger one has more general space designs on it. Still, I had to decide how they would match one another and what exactly to put on both. The larger bird has a sun carved on one side while the smaller one has a crescent moon to match. On the other side of the large bird is our solar system while the small one has a galaxy, showing more expanded views of the universe. The tops and sides of the large bird is covered in different constellations I picked out, the small one has speaks and swirls representing other galaxies.

  The bird was first sculpted out of clay. I started making the body by creating two evenly thick pinch bowls, then attaching them together by scraping outwards facing lines into the clay and adding a lot of water to join the pieces together well. With my now hollow ball of clay, I worked within until it formed more of a tear-drop shape, with the point being the tail of the bird. Then I pinched a smaller half circle of clay which I cut down on one side to create a point, I then scratched attached that onto the body, and formed the head, working the clay on the pointed end to creat the beak of the bird. After that, I spent a lot of time smoothing out the body before letting it dry out. Once it was completely dry I covered it in multiple layers of black glaze. After the glaze dried I carved the different spaces designed into the clay, mostly using a pointed needle tool. Once I decided the designed on the bird were complete they were fired in a kiln, I then coved them in clear glaze and fired them again. This is what created the finished product of a shiny black bird with space designs.

At the start of this project when I first decided I wanted to create a clay bird, I drew up some ideas on the idea sheet we were given in class. I sketched out a singular bird with different designs on it. At this point in the prosses, the bird was a falcon but I quickly changed it to a more round bird once I started working with the clay because it was an easier shape to create. On that same piece of paper, I sketched out different space designs, looking online for references because I did not anticipate that it would be hard to do in black and white with one opacity. In this regard, this is why I used a lot of smaller shapes, lines, and textures, the more detail the more recognizable it was. I chose to make a second, smaller bird when I was done molding the first because I had extra clay and time. I matched up the designs so I could take a photo and they would go together.