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How long have you been sculpting:  As of writing this a little over 4 1/2 years (started in late November 2003)

How did you learn to sculpt (any formal education)? Self-taught.  Just bought some clay and started playing with it.

Do you make a living as an artist?  Nope, went to school to get a BBA in Management Information Systems because I bought into the whole “starving artist” mentality.  I’m working on undoing that mentality

When did you first start using polymer clay:  January of 2004

What are your favorite properties for polymer clay:  Doesn’t dry out, can be baked in the oven (no need for a kiln), holds detail very well and it taste like chicken (disclaimer… for those of you with no sense of humor or take everything I write literally I am just joking, please do not eat the stuff ).

What are your least favorite properties for polymer clay:  Takes patience if carving in details (however that is probably any medium), easy to mess up details if you do not partial bake the clay, requires an armature for support and prone to cracking.

Do you exclusively use polymer clay: No, the majority of my work is done with polymer clay but I am open to other clays. Wed clay is great for doing life size portraits and I’m considering playing a little with wax.

How often do you sculpt - As much as possible and not as much as I like ;-).  At best I get maybe 1 -2 hours a day on average but I don’t get to sculpt every day.  My best opportunity to do some serious sculpting is if there is some downtime on the weekends, like late Friday night or early Saturday and Sunday morning.  I have a family so I can’t just hideaway in my little office and sculpt all day long.

How long does it take you to complete a sculpt?  It really depends on the sculpt.  Some sculptures I can knock out in a few hours while others take forever to complete.  On average it usually takes me well over 100 hours to complete a detailed sculpture that arranges anywhere from 12 to 18 inches in height.

What would you be doing if you were not sculpting ?  Probably drawing or painting.  I’m far better at sculpting then I am at drawing so I’m grateful that I have discovered this craft.  But then again if I invested as much time drawing and painting as I do sculpting then I would be much better at that too

Who are your favorite sculptors/artist and why? There are probably too many to count but the ones that stand out the most are:

Popularity: 18% [?]

Working on the left arm

I think the theme for my latest tutorials is going to be about fixing mistakes.  I did not do a very good job with the armature at the beginning of this sculpture and I am now paying for it.  Basically the clay is too heavy for the shoulder and arm to support all of the weight.  I’m now having issues where the shoulder is splitting in half because of the weight of the arm and the fiddle. 

Right now the only way that I see to resolve this issue is to bake the shoulder and arm as one piece and attach it to the Fiddler’s torso at a later time.  Most likely I’ll still have a weight issue at the point I attach the arm at so my workaround for that will be to partially bake the entire area where the shoulder attaches to (I’ll cover that in more detail later on)

* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

	Using a sharp cutting took I basically removed the arm.
	I decided to change the textures a bit on this piece.  I’m thinking about having this sculpture cast in bronze at a later date so I’m trying to come up with a more artistic look for the skin texture.  The texture I have here gives me a feeling a movement as if the muscles were twitching and flexing while the Fiddler plays the fiddle.
	Smoothing out the textures with rubbing alcohol.
	The goal here is to only bake part of the sculpture instead of the entire arm.  That way the clay covered by the aluminum foil is still soft and will be easy to attach to the Fiddler’s torso.  Well, I cooked it too long and it didn’t work.  No biggie, I can still add the arm to the torso, it will just take a little more work.
	A picture of me attempting to partially bake the arm.

Next lesson - Coming soon

Previous lesson - Fixing the forearm

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