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

Day One - Sculpture Two

Creating the Form

This is to be a solid scupture which has been shaped by repeatedly bashing it with the mallet. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is.

The clay was placed on an end and the final form considered. I would like the sculpture to appear to be leaning over to one side.

The mallet is one that is used originally for lead working. I had a feeling that there was a lack of control over my bashing, and the lean to the side was becoming unsustainable. I texted James with a photograph to ask about how the physics of the piece was affecting the outcome

James sent back the picture with the arrow drawn to show where the stability of the sculpture lay down the central line

Part of the clay was removed to help make the bottom of the first sculpture and this made sculpture 2 much easier to manage. I found this sculpture much more frustrating to create a form than sculpture 1.

At this point I decided to leave it and revisit in the morning