Large Sculpture

[jpc]

Hello!

I am have difficulty with an aspect of my sculpture. I cannot seem to get rid of the building lines. I am using slabs that I cut to thin sections and then join them. I use to roll my own coils but this took too long, I do not have access to an extruder. I slip and score and then blend the pieces together and although the lines are not there at this time, as the piece dries out the lines reappear. I am not sure if they are the joint lines. Unfortunately, I do not have photos of them I am going to try to upload a photo of the models for the work. You can see the lines on the smaller pieces. I hope I have attaches them properly. They are green ware. Working on the glaze for them.

I have looked for books and possible you tube videos but cannot find any. The work in them is usually on the small side. I have a few books on large ceramic sculpture but there is nothing about this in them, I imagine it is something really simple that I am overlooking.

In advance, thank you!

JPC

[PeterH]

jpc,

 

Your images don't display (for me), they just appear to keep trying to display forever..

 

I downloaded one of the "image" files which seems to be an "AppleDouble encoded Macintosh file"

rather than a JPEG. [Checked on a readable image on another thread, which was a JPEG.]

 

Regards, Peter

[jpc]

Thanks Peter. It looks like they are attached properly!

[Stephen]

They seem to be jpegs for me and work fine.

[PeterH]

Thanks, fine now.

[timbo_heff]

Try a damp sponge to "wet sand" and rib to smooth and compress the joints as they stiffen up to leather. Then you can damp sponge more even when bone dry..

Then as a last resort, take them as bone dry or even bisque, outside and sand them downwind (hepa filter mask recommended)

[perkolator]

are you talking about horizontal cracking lines in the piece - like separation between added coils?  I don't see any of that in these pieces.  if that's the case, you need to slip, score, and add better compression between your "building blocks".

 

if you're talking about the horizontal "ripples" in the sculptures, then this is more likely due to uneven compression between the layers of your coils/building blocks.  in our studio we build large scale, people tend to build with "ribbons" of clay instead of "coils" because it saves major time on a 6ft sculpture - when they build like this, they sometimes get uneven compression on the "field" sections of the ribbons vs the edges that are being further compressed/manipulated via slipping/scoring/attaching.  when the piece dries out, the more compacted sections where they were joined tend to protrude slightly on what was an even surface, and the less compressed clay tends to shrink back slightly - resulting in ripples.  the only way i know how to eliminate this rippling is to fully manhandle and compress all of your clay evenly as possible so it all dries and shrinks the same.  clay memory is an amazing feature of the medium.

 

if you're grinding/sanding down your bone dry or even fired work, just please make sure you wear some PPE and keep your lungs happy 

 

 

side note:  i know that Akio Takamori uses a large slab building block to form his large pieces and usually makes his studio assistants grind down all these ripples on these large sculptures after they are bisqued....sounds like a fun job....

 

 

[jpc]

Perkolator
Thank you. Do  you know of anyone on the east coast making large sculpture? I would love to do a workshop/residency.