Wood As Skeleton For Sculptures?

[Rune Thomassen]

Hi!

First of all, I am very very new to ceramics. Nearly not startet (only made a wall piece for myself), but I have plans to learn and make it my profession. I do know quite a lot of theory by now since I have been crawling Youtube almost non-stop lately.

I want to try to make sculptures. So the question is: Is it possible to use wood instead of metal as a frame/skeleton for a ceramic sculpture?

I ask because I do not know and can not find out what will happen to wood during firing. Will it expand and crack the piece? That is what I am worried about, you see. If it expands, is it something I can do with the wood to prevent that?

I do not have a kiln, so I will fire using alternative methods like pit-fire or saggar or barrel firing, or everything at once. I may use saggars in a pit fire in a barrel, and use charcoal to get the temperature going. I guess that will be how I will fire the pieces. I am totally in love with the surface decoration that is possible to achieve with saggar or pit-fire. 

I use homemade paperclay. I live in rural Norway (Scandinavia), and here it is impossible to get a variety of clays. Well, it is possible, but the freight cost will be so high, so I really have only two options: Red clay or blue clay. I know it is not called blue clay in the US, but I don't know what you call it. It is blueish grey and fires to a pale yellow. It is a low-fire marine clay, and it is said to be very good for throwing (because it is so plastic). That clay will crack easily, so I hope I can prevent cracking in a non-controllable firing like pit-fire, by use large amounts of paper pulp in the clay. I have not fired a single piece yet, so I really don't know if that is the case. It will be too expensive to buy a raku clay from Oslo and get it shipped up north to the arctics where I live. 

I tried to process local clay. It does look quite easy on Youtube, but our local clay is not like the "youtube clay". We have this blue clay, and it will not dissolve in water. Some will, and it floates. I does not sink, whatsoever. I managed to process some, and then a bunch of sheeps came and ate my clay, and stepped on it, making a total mess. That was the point i gave up and promised myself that I will never use local clay again. It is a shame, we have lots of it all over the place. Actually it is 25 meters of clay under the ground here. A construction company found that out when they drilled for a foundation for a building block. They did it a few days ago. I might get the clay from the drilling hole. Maybe it is so pure it can be used straight without processing. Hmm, will give that I try.

Well, I write a lot of here about nothing. But the original question was about wood as a frame for a sculpture. Is that a good idea or not? I have some artistic plans, you see, that involves wood as a skeleton. So metal is not an option by now. For other type of sculptures I can use metal, but not for this particular kind.

I hope you experts can help me with this

Kind regards
Rune Thomassen

[Benzine]

Welcome to the forum and the world of clay.

 

The "skeleton" you are referring to is known as an armature. Clay sculptors do use them regularly, and they can be made from numerous materials including clay and metal. HOWEVER, the armatures are normally removed before firing. There are a couple reasons for this, one of which you somewhat touched on. It's not the wood expanding during firing, that you have to worry about. It's the fact that from its wet, workable state, clay shrinks. Wood, metal and other materials do not shrink in this way, and will crack the clay, long before it is fired.

Most of the time, when armatures are used, they are removed once the claybhas dried enough that the clay can support itself.

 

The other problem with metal and wood armatures being left in, is they aren't meant to tolerate the temeratures produced in a ceramic firing. Wood will burn long before the full firing temperature is reached. And metal weakens at these temeratures and can also create gases, that would cause issues with your sculptures, especially if the metal was on the inside.

 

So a solution would be to use the same clay body as an exterior armature. It shrinks at the same rate as the actual sculpture.

 

However, you might want to rethink the look of your sculptures too. I just mention this because armatures are traditionally used to support thin, over hanging sections of a sculpture. Such pieces would not fare too well in alternative firing methods like pit firing, where things shift around.

 

I hope this kind of gives you a start. I'm sure others here will provide their insight as well.

 

Best of luck.

[Rune Thomassen]

Thank you very much for your answer!  No I know a lot more about armatures. I did not know that armatures is supposed to be removed. Hmm, shrinking. Yes, i totally understand. The design I am after does not make it possible to remove the armature. But it might work to cut the sculpture in two lenghtwise, remove the wood and fix the two pieces of leatherhard clay together again. That will in some cases be possible, in others not. Hmm, I guess I have to make a test sculpture and see what happens with shrinking and firing with the wood inside. Maybe those cracks from shrinking can be mended before firing.

I can not tell what type of sculpture I will try to make. Later, but not now. If it does work and makes fabulous sculptures, I dont want anybody to steal the idea. But I now understand why I have not seen such sculptures before, and a Google search does not find any. This wood thing is more of a problem that I could imagine, unfortunately.

I am very good at experimenting, if I have to say myself. So I might be able to experiment a solution to the problem. Some treatment to the wood perhaps, and a highly experimental clay body can maybe help this cracking issue. Anyway, I do not plan to use the wood as a thin and fragile armature. It will be bigger pieces. So I guess the statue can support itself as long as it is dried out.

I should really had a pottery education. But that is the last thing I can afford right now. So I just have to help myself as good as I can.

Ceramic Arts Daily is fabulous! So many things to learn from this forum.

[Denice]

I made sculptures on wire frames for many years and if you don't remove the armature soon enough the clay will start cracking, wood armatures would pull moisture from the clay, cracking would be much worse. You need to wrap some plastic around the wood if your going to try it.  For a pit firing you need to have a low fire clay such as raku clay, you need to test the clay in your area in a pit firing to see if it will come close to vitrification.  If your sculptures are not fired hot enough they will be extremely fragile to the touch, they might not even hold their own weight and crumble to pieces.    Denice

[flowerdry]

I would love to try some of that youtube clay. 

[oldlady]

rune, do not worry about someone else stealing your idea.  if your sculptures are good, they will stand up against anybody's copies.  most potters do not want to copy anyone, they might practice a similar style while learning but will not make exact copies.

 

try mixing the blue clay and some red clay in different amounts to see if that works better than only one color. or, perhaps your blue clay will make a glaze once you work it all out.

[Benzine]

Denice, Raku clay is actually not low fire.  But it generally is only fired to those temps, which is why Raku ware is relatively weak, because it's not really even close to being vitrified.  The Raku bodies, or any similar body, like a stoneware, is used because it can withstand the thermal shock, of being heated and cooled quickly, because it isn't vitrified.

Low fire bodies can't handle this, since they do begin to vitrify at the low temps.

 

That reminds me Rune, from my experience, and that of others ceramicists who pit fire, it greatly helps to bisque fire the wares first.  It really does help prevent breakage.  As it sounds like you will not be able to do this, you need to proceed cautiously.  Some people heat their unfired wares in an oven, before transferring them to the pit.  That way there is less shock from being heated quickly by the fire.

 

Also, I've used a blue green, found, low fire clay before.  It turned a golden yellow when fired.  I had no issues building or throwing with it.  However, even once it was fired, it was quite fragile.  I could snap a half inch thick fired piece with my bare hands.  I don't know if it was underfired, or just had too many impurities or something of the like.  I also know, that a similar clay body a classmate of mine brought in to my college studio, was fired to the mid to high fire temps of that studio.  It melted.  It was fired on a waster platform, because the instructor knew better than to think nothing bad would happen.  

 

Yet a couple more things to think about...

[Chris Campbell]

Rune ... What you are trying to do is very difficult even for those with experience. You are trying to solve many problems at once.

I would suggest you try to break this down to steps rather than a huge whole thing.

 

First would be your clay. Research how people take raw clay and make it useable ... this is a whole field of study. There are mineral and material additions you can try rather than just adding paper. Once you get confident of what your clay can or cannot do then you move on.

 

Your use of wood as anything with wet clay is a problem because it will soak the moisture from the clay and swell up. This can crack the clay or make it almost impossible to remove the wood without wrecking the form. You need armature that is a neutral as possible.

 

Your worry about someone stealing your idea is quite common with beginner potters. Over time, you will find out that almost anything you are trying to do has been done before ... sometimes a thousand years ago! One potter tells the tale of trying a new form every day for a year and his teacher would open a pottery book and show him an image of it made by someone else. The history of clay is long and wide.

 

Welcome to the forum and the clay world ... Best wishes!

[Rune Thomassen]

Thank you all for great answers!   

Okey, the case is that i will use driftwood as armature. Find driftwood of the most interesting shapes, and sculpt semi-abstract human or human like sculptures around it. So that the result will look a bit like the work of Yolande Biver (the picture under). Yolande Biver is not using driftwood. I guess it will be hard to remove the driftwood armature. But wrapped in plastic, that was a good tip! Maybe bubble wrap to prevent cracks from shrinkage. Well, I don't know. 

The blue clay I have bought is the same as the local clay, and it is low-fire with a natural high content of calsium/whiting. Maximum circa 1100 celsius/2000 fahrenheit. I made paperclay with lots of paper added, to make sure it better can handle the alternative firing, and be stronger in it's greenware state. No grog, because I am too lazy to crumble bricks with a sledge hammer. If the sculptures cracks a little here and there, that is not a too big of an issue as long as it does not crack to pieces. Since I like warping, I might like cracking as well   My four big tiles warped a lot during drying, and since it is supposed to be a wall piece, I like that much better than just flat tiles. Makes it far more interesting. Shaped by nature, almost.

[oldlady]

you will find using wood as anything but an idea will be frustrating.  you will not succeed in combining the two.  there are few things in ceramics that are absolutes but your idea is not compatible with the materials you plan to use.

 

why not use the driftwood as an artist would use a model?  look at it, feel its shape, repeat it in clay.  just do not try to combine the two, you will be wasting your time while you could be doing something that will work.

[Benzine]

If you want to use the driftwood to get a certain shape, that is possible, by draping the clay over it.  Roll out a slab, drape it over the driftwood, press it so that it contours to the form.  Once the clay has dried a bit, remove it from the driftwood.  To make a hollow sculpture, make two slabs, as mentioned above, and score and slip the two halves together.  

 

Also, I notice the metal bits in the sculptures you posted.  If you do want to include metal additions, just leave a cavity for them, and glue such things in after they are fired.

[Rune Thomassen]

Okey, well, then it is a bad idea to combine clay and wood. But the solution Benzine says with shaping slabs over the wood and score and slip them together, that is absolutely great! Thank you  That should work really well.

I am not a great sculptor, at least not yet. So to use the wood as a model, that is far too advanced for my non-existing sculpting skills. I will have to make a head and arms/hands anyway. Luckily Youtube has lots of step-by-step tutorials. But I have learned that everything on Youtube is far more difficult in real life. For example the easy task of rolling a slab. Oh my God, i almost broke my rolling pin. I actually had to make a thick coil and then roll it out from there, to avoid destroying my rolling pin. In Youtube, people roll out slabs like pizza doughs. I don't know what it is with my blue clay imported from Denmark, but it does for sure not behave like the clays they use in Youtube videos. Maybe because it is 100% natural with no additives to the clay body, or maybe because I papered it so heavily. I don't think the clay was too hard. I did actually get sticky fingers, something the youtubers never get. By the way, I do not know what it is with our paper here in Norway either. It does not dissolve in water either, does not break down to pulp whatsoever. I did not use a blender, only hot water, time and stirring. I kneaded this big lumps of paper in the clay. Thought it may would break apart by mechanical force. Absolutely not! Eventually the paper became pulp, after a few weeks maturing time inside the clay. I used normal kitchen tissue paper from a roll. Next time I will use the cheapest toilet paper, that breaks only by looking at it.

I altso tried a redneck-solution for a pugmill, a manual heavy duty iron meat grinder. Those who are attached to a table and you are supposed to crank the meat thru. Well, that did NOT work at all. I just hope my redneck slab roller will work. I have not used it yet. That is an old roller for clothing. Used before they invented washing machines with centrifugal force. Hand-cranked, heavy duty stuff with big wooden rollers. I so hope it will work, since I need a slab roller with this clay. It is a clay said to be the best clay of them all for throwing. Actually I have a potter's wheel. A very cute one, all-metal and made in the seventies in Germany, purchased from Santa Barbara, California. I have a small apartment that is being refurbished right now, so I have not moved in yet. There is no room there for a normal potter's wheel in my apartment, so I have a small table top model with two extremely stupid solutions. The electricity must come from a car battery type of source and there is only 1 speed setting - on and off. But it has a clever solution as well - a pipe to drain excess water down to a bucket or a bottle. I have not used it yet. I bought it because of the good looks of the wheel, and did not pay attention to the usability. Not very smart. My idea was to camouflage the pottery wheel in the living room by place a flower pot on top of it.

When the financial situation gets better, I hope I can have some sort of education. Normal education is not an option since I will use up the years it is possible to get a students loan and funding by finishing the education I take now. Courses are often the most stupid things ever. Who on earth can learn to become a potter in four days or a weekend? I think that is wasted money, even if it is possible to learn something. I had to google really hard to find better courses, and I found that in the UK and Greece. So that is the plan right now, save up and travel for a several weeks combined pottery education and holiday in the English countryside and the Greek sun. I have always wanted to go to America. That is possible too, now when the flight fares are so low. But the American crime scares me, to be honest. Maybe they just show the worst on TV, from places like Detroit. I guess it is not nearly as dangerous most places in Europe. It is quite safe to walk around alone at night in most cities in Europe. A half Norwegian girl from Seattle told me horror stories from her city. I could not believe what I heard! Our capital Oslo is quite bad, though. Worse than many other European cities. But I did survive the high crime in The Netherlands, so I might survive America as well   Everything for pottery, and your ceramic courses seems to be great! Well, time will show if i choose UK or US. But being a place where normal people are armed to the teeth, that freaks me out. When I meet people that are drunk and drugged, I do honestly prefer them being unarmed. Here we never know, but at least it is illegal to carry weapon in public, illegal to buy them as well if you are not a hunter.

[Benzine]

The US isn't that scary Rune.  And we aren't all armed.  It's just the bad stuff that makes the news.

 

I actually had a foreign exchange student from Norway in a couple of my classes, a few years ago.  She did very good work, and I enjoyed having her in class.

[oldlady]

rune, i also have a fear of people with guns and a little mental instability.  i think of it this way.   this country has about 320 MILLION people in it.  most of them, such a high percentage you would not believe, are NOT criminals or dangerous.   i think of my chances of having something really bad happen to me as very unlikely.  yes, i am simplistic but at least i do not spend all day worrying about a thimbleful of poison in the ocean of humanity.

 

check out the statistics that you can find online.  and of course, what you see on television is fictional stories dramatized for the camera.  yes, we have an occasional horrible deadly shooting by a madman and that is real and tragic.  but remember that percentage is out  of 320 MILLION people, tiny.

[Rune Thomassen]

Yes, you are totally right. The media only show the absolute worst, and nothing else. Yes, dramatized for the camera, that's how it is. Fictional and made to look like a documentary. I can not count how many of these American TV-shows we have here about different types of crime and gangs. It is not that safe here either, by the way. My neighbour had a burglery two days ago, and somone in my family committed murder some years ago. Women can not go alone after dark in Oslo since rape is not uncommon. When I lived in Tromsø, burglary was so common that everybody had to take precautions. And Tromsø is by US standards only a village (70 000 inhabitants). We have a lot of drug related crime in the cities. Rasistic motivated attacks on foreigners is neither uncommon. Because of the open borders of EU-countries, and the open border between Sweden (EU) and Norway (non-EU), we have a significant amount of "tourist" from poorer countries in Eastern Europe driving around and stealing everything of value outdoors, and committing burglary. And people actually have weapons in their houses. Not everybody, but many. And that is allowed as long as you have a licence. Personally, I would like the country to be totally unarmed. Shootings does occur not too seldom, you see.

320 million people, that is almost unimmaginable for me, we are only 5 million. But Europe as a total I guess is something that numerous. Since you are one country, and we are many countries. That makes a difference when it comes to ceramics. Clay, for example. I understand it is common with free shipping inside US if you order over a certain amount. Here it is never free shipping between countries, and there is even customs to pay for international shipping. For heavy items like clay, I have only very limited choises because of this, and you within a 320 million big country have unlimited choises. For me to order clay from for example Germany, oh my God, I would be ruined! Even from Oslo is impossible, since orders over 30 kilos have to be sent with a special carrier, costing hundreds of dollars, minimum 400 dollar. You can not imagine how hard i had to google and do reasearch before I actually could order a clay whatsoever. I found ONE shop, one shop only, that had free shipping for everything for orders over a certain amount. Clay was not an exeption. But they had only two clays, pure blue and pure red clay. So I ordered 30 kilos to begin with. Well, I am sure they did loose money on my order. Shipping costs are higher than what i paid. I guess I have to order maybe 60 kilos soon, before they change the deal. If they exclude clay from free shipping, well, then I have to dig and process clay myself, or order clay from another place, and pay about three times the cost for the actual clay in total. Not easy, you see. Well, if I order like 3 tonnes, then the shipping will not be that high per kilo. I guess that is the way to go in the future, if I hopefully become a ceramic artist and a potter. The clay itself is not expensive. I paid 12 dollar for 10 kilo. If I adjust roughly for national differences in income and price level, I guess it would be if you should pay around 8-9 dollars for 10 kilo. I don't find that expensive.

I see a big difference between Norway and US, if I should judge by the information I have access to, since I never have been there. And that is the welfare system. That is very different. And I think, because of the welfare system, you are far more creative. Or have to be far more creative. Resulting in that you have far more courses and things like that. Private persons who use their creativity to make an extra income by providing courses, making things to sell, etc, etc. Here it is not like that. We have courses, and private persons provide them too. But as I can judge, not as far as much as you have. Artists in Norway don't necessarily have to provide courses and other things to make an extra income, since there is a safety net if everything goes wrong, or the income is too low. The level of using your creativity in alternative ways, is not that high here. For me that means that I have little to choose from when I now try to find a course of more than 4-5 days. In don't know if it is like that in the US, but I have got an impression of it.

The exchange student from Norway, was she from up north? You see I am looking for a ceramicist in my area to ask if I can have private education.

[alabama]

You might like to research Mississippian effigy vessels. The vessels are coil built with stylized modeling to make the human effigy and animorphiç forms.

There are no armatures to worry about.

I'd also get some of that clay from the construction site! You might need some, ànd it doesn't go bad and spoil.

See ya,

Alabàma

[Joe Rader]

Hello Rune,

 

Like yourself, I am very new to ceramics.  I will attempt my first firing at cone 06 in two days. Aside from reading as much as I possibly can to come up to speed on my new hobby, I was directed to a site that has become a fountain of information and inspiration for me.  Have you ever used "Pinterest"?  You can set up a board that has "ceramics"  or "clay sculpture" as the purpose and it will automatically direct you to all kinds of information.  You can "pin" each item that interests you and it makes a very good mood board for your designs.

 

In addition to Pinterest, YouTube has some very informative presentations. 

 

Best of luck in your new passion.