Mastering Hand Building Techniques at Wendy Lawrence's Workshop 2025 part three

Day Two - Sculpture One

Preparing the Surface

The cheese grater scraper was applied to the entire surface to ensure that it is as smooth as possible for the carving. Any larger lumps and bumps were eliminated with the round tool

Carving

It is important to have a long think about the carving before starting. I started a little precipitously without considering the 3D nature of the sculpture and with a lack of awareness of the continuation of the lines front and back, and over the top.

Having considered how I would like the lines to flow, they were lightly sketched onto the sculpture with a needle tool.

Plenty of space is left between the original lines to ensure that there is space for creating extra depth between. The emphasis is very much on LAYERS.

I have made this sculpture extremely thick and there is plenty of room for many layers.

Do not have all the lines flowing from the middle, but instead consider starting slightly to one side.

When carving the first line, use the square ended tool (closest to sculpture on photo above) and dig in to the left, before smoothing out the right hand side so that there is no hard line. On the next line, dig in to the right before smoothing out the left hand side. This results in a smooth gliding surface between the two lines upon which the same technique can be employed but at a level below.

More levels and layers create a more pleasing finish.

Great care is taken to ensure that the lines going off to the sides are met by lines on the reverse. It proved to be very tricky to ensure that the flow continued in the right direction though and on a couple of occasions it was actually reversed.

Likewise the top was carefully considered and significant chuncks removed to ensure that the piece has a feeling of continued flow and no awkward stops.

To fill in some of the flatter spaces, I carved some parts that were single spaces, roundish, it is possible to make out the outline of one on the photograph above, top right of the piece.

Wendy explained that this would look extremely clunky and that all parts of the sculpture must always be working together. Nothing is to be on its own, but all must be part of the same flowing shape. She helped me to develop this solo spots so that they flowed into the other layers and it looked considerably better.

I could not have been more delighted with the final piece, I have learnt to take time to consider form and again to take time to consider the carving. My previous approach of just getting stuck in and see what happens was not appropriate here and I think my approach going forward will be immeasurably improved after having spent time with Wendy.