I'm excited to share some process details about the pine marten sculpture that I completed last month. This project felt like a big leap for me, since I more often create functional dinnerware/household items instead of larger sculptural forms.
Here is the finished product, and below I'll walk you step by step through the process of how Mr. Marten came to be.
The first thing I did was scour the internet for inspiration photos of North American pine martens (Martes americana). I was looking for specific postures that I thought would be dynamic to sculpt, as well as references for color and texture. Below is a smattering from my digital marten mood board.
Then the sculpting began, illustrated in steps 1-5 in the photo collage below. I started with a large chunk of clay weighing around 25lbs. I then proceeded to cut away piece by piece until the form emerged into something more recognizably marten-esque (1-2). I initially had the marten standing on a tree stump (2), but the scale of that felt weird to me, so I changed the stump to a boulder (3). I then spent more time observing the photos of martens I had collected and realized I had made the ears and snout too pointed, so I spent time adjusting those proportions, as well as smoothing the rough marks I had left by removing clay with my fingertips (4). I didn't take any photos of it (I was too busy holding my breath), but at this point I also did the quite harrowing task of cutting it in half length-wise, hollowing it out, and reassembling it. Finally, after smoothing out the marks from this full blown internal surgery, I added in finer details, such as the texture of the fur, the lips, and the eye sockets (5).
I then let it dry super slowly before bisque firing. The bisque fire is the first of two firings done in standard electric kiln firings. Bisquing makes the piece more durable, and it allows the glazes to be applied more easily. The clay has to be fully bone-dry before it can go in the kiln, which is why the sculpture needed to be hollowed out.
Once the marten was bisqued, I had to figure out how to glaze it. Below you can see my process for deciding where to apply which glazes. Almost every part of the marten has four layers of two different glazes, so it took awhile to wrap my head around the logical order in which to apply them.
Below is what it looked like after the glazes had all been brushed on. This to me is the part of ceramics that gives me the greatest feelings of uncertainty. It's impossible to know if I made the right decisions on which glazes to use where, and if it will come out how I'm hoping. It was simultaneously nerve-wracking and a relief to get it into the kiln for the glaze firing. I had done everything I could at that point, and the results were out of my hands and into the hands of the kiln gods.
When I pulled it out of the kiln, I got pretty choked up with happy tears. Something about the way it's little face turned out felt so expressive, and I was really proud of the results I achieved.
I'm excited to try my hand at sculpting other critters. Are there any that you think I should take on next? Let me know in the comments section!
With Muddy Hands- Rachel
