“I’m going to slap up some clay to use. However, this bird now often times because of a slab roller, and I do a lot of projects where I’m just wrapping clay around and getting started that way. Sometimes I can slip out some clay and I have a long plastic bin out in the garage and I can lay a slab out the clay, put a plastic down, put a layer of clay, plastic layer of clay. But anyway, so I fill the box. Then when I know I’m going to be working on something, I can pull out a big slab of clay. Now, the nice thing about this, is I can have that big slab of clay. It could be dry as a bone. And what I do is I can wrap it in a big wet towel and reconstitute it. So then I can go ahead and use that big slab whenever I want all I have to don’t have to, flatten it every time I can just use what I have reconstituted in a way I go.”
“So once again, I’m going to start with what I know. I want to be a color on, I know the leaves in the, on the stem are going to be green. So I’m just going to start with those. This is transparent paint. There’s no white in this paint. Because it’s transparent, it’s going to let the black show through. So it doesn’t matter if it gets into the crevices. Although remember why the yellow always has. It always has some white in it. So as long as it’s thin, it’s going to work out. But if it’s thick, it’s going to come, you know, it’s going to cover over things.”
“So I have a really dark, dark chocolate brown, and I’m going to start painting that and I painted over everything, except the eyes. I try to avoid the eyes and I’ll start with just one side of the frog too. I’m I’ve the, paint’s not going to dry, but I don’t want to get my hands in it. I’m trying to avoid is his belly.”
“When you’re doing bird. So I have used a lot of color on my birds. It’s a partly artistic license, partly because most birds, I mean, if you get the light hitting on them, just right. All the colors that show up in that bird are amazing. So here I’m putting on this color. And you can see why I tell you not to use your best brushes for doing this. Well, this does look a lot more jade when you put it on.”
“I think the eyes are always going to be the most important of any little animal that you make. But all these extra little details and ridges, and that’s what really makes them special. So just doing as many spots as I can. And then when you get, you run out of clay or you get sick of doing this, you can stop and put them on and see how they look. So I think I’ll do that. We’ll stop right here and just carefully remove your plastic wrap. Some of the spots will, will come out on the foil. So you should just generally start with those. So now I keep saying foil it’s plastic wrap. So let me move those aside for a second. Okay. We’re running out of room here. Saw me, I’m doing here. Okay. So just take your spots and start putting them on to the frog’s back. And I generally start with the larger ones and don’t pay any attention to the colors. I just randomly put them on.”
“I’m going to start showing you some texture. I haven’t put his wings on him yet, but this part of the texture, I want to make sure I do before I get the wings on. Cause I want to make sure there’s plenty of texture underneath his wings, and I’m going to do this text. You’re very much like the idea on the thigh feathers, when I showed you how to do those. And so I, again, I’m using my wipe out tool. I’m using the pointy end and anytime I’m working on the top, I’m holding up the bottom. So I went my tool and I’m digging in deep because I want this texture to really show up.”
“So, what I do is I just roll up that foot piece or the hand, I guess I should be calling it and I’m going to flatten it out and I make sort of like a paddle shape, kind of like that. And then I’m going to do the same for the other side. I always lay my hands and feet out. Side-by-side because so many times I’ve done hands where I’ve done two left hands and it’s Oh, it makes me so mad. Cause I’ll, I’ll come up with one and I’ll think it actually looks pretty good.”
“So first step is just going to be to wrap the clay around your foil core and how you do that is really up to you. It’s not, you want to trim off the excess, you don’t, we don’t need all that thickness. If your clay is too thick, it’s going to, it could, it could, crack on you. If you have areas that are much thicker than others. So I try to trim off what I don’t need. So let’s just move this aside for a second. I’m actually gonna get rid of this tile for a minute. I will put it on this because then it’ll be easier to move the tile than it will be to lift the frog once it has its legs on.”
“So we’re working on these feathers to make them so that you can, when I’m in the back end of your bird, or I, you know, sometimes I’ll make little buns for the hair. You can put photos wherever you want to that’s this is your choice, but this is how you do it. All right. So I sprayed this. Remember I’m putting my wire down. I want the wire delay as flatly as possible and laying that down. And then I’m taking my snake and I am laying it on top here. I want this up a little higher because I’m going to pull this down and I could use the extra link up on top to make sure that that wire gets covered.”
Learn more about the course here: https://www.curiousmondo.com/sculpting-fiber-clay-course
Ever wondered how polymer artist Melissa Terlizzi sculpts her whimsical frogs and toads? Here is your opportunity to find out, as she shares with Mondo Makers all the techniques and tricks to making a big green bullfrog! In this 3 Day sculpting course, Melissa will not only demonstrate how to make the frog, but will also create a raised pond for it to sit in, elevating a simple “sculpt” into a story-telling piece of art. With swamp-tastic bonus classes also planned, this course is a must for anyone who loves creating animals out of polymer clay, and enjoys getting carried away with color and detail. Great course on polymer clay!
“So the first thing I’m going to do on my nice smooth piece of clay is I’m going to just put this off to the side here and now I’m going to trace around that actual actually that’s remind me that that’s upside down to you. So turn it around here. If I put it right in the middle of the clay, then I, then I’ve, you know, have to roll it out again. And I want to keep all that because I have all these other leaves and stems I’m going to put on there. So I’m just going to take a ballpoint pen and go over my bird with a ballpoint pen. In terms of pressure. It’s the same pressure as if you were riding on it. You’re writing on a paper, but you also, you know, you can poke through it. So, and I probably will do that a couple of times. “
In this Fiber Clay Sculpting Class, you’ll learn to make a bird out of Fiber Clay, an easy to use medium that doesn’t have to be fired. I use only four shapes, a ball, snake, potato, and pancake, to teach you to create sculptures you’ll be amazed you built.
We’re playing leap frog. So you have two friends and yourself, and you’re playing leapfrog where you jump over the people in front of you. Typically, you can only play with two people where you leap over, but we’re going to pretend like you’ve got really long legs. So I’m going to leap over these two and under this one. Okay. Now I like to teach with different explanations, different analogies, so that if you didn’t understand that you can understand a different way. So we’re going to play the train game. So we have a train here and this one is the engine. This middle one is the dining car, and this one is the caboose. So poor caboose always wants to be the big engine because the engine gets the most attention. So he’s going to jump over the dining car and that one in there he is. He’s now the engine.
You don’t have to worry about air bubbles. You don’t have to worry about slipping score. All those things that you will know about. And another thing is we can fix anything. And so that’s one thing I really want to impress on you. And I’ll be talking about it throughout the class, because if you don’t like something, we can fix it. If something cracks, we can fix it. It’s not like regular clay when you’re scoping. And if it dries out, you’re done, you can’t eat. You don’t, you can’t use it anymore with regular clay. When you’re sculpting, after you get your piece done yet the hollow it all out and make sure that there’s air holes for the air to escape in your fire. Right? Because we’re not firing. We don’t have to worry about that. Plus even if you were firing it. So it’s nylon fibers are burning out, it’s leaving air holes for the air to escape in the piece and you don’t have to worry about hollowing it out or air air holes or whatever. It just fires up just fine. So, those are some of the things I love about this play, and we’ll talk about it more as I go on, because there’s so much more, that I can tell you.
