Modelling Still Life and Natural Forms
Senior 1 · Fine Arts
Modelling Still Life and Natural Forms
Lesson 2 of 4
22 min
Soft clay is heavy and weak. A round avocado can hold itself up, but the long neck of a gourd, a stalk or a leaf curling up into the air will sag, crack or snap off. Sculptors solve this with an armature: a hidden support inside or under the clay, just as your bones hold up your body. A good armature is planned before any clay is touched, from careful drawings of the real objects. In this lesson you will plan a still life of a gourd, two avocados and a leaf, and build its armature from wire, newspaper and tape.
| Form | Problem | Support |
|---|---|---|
| Round and compact: avocado, tomato, stone | Thick solid clay dries slowly and cracks | A small paper core, or make it hollow as a pinch form |
| Bulky with a thin part: gourd with a neck | The neck sags or snaps | Paper core for the body, wire up through the neck, fixed to the base |
| Thin and flat: leaf | Flops, and cracks when lifted | Wire along the midrib, and a paper former under the curve |
| Long and thin: stalk, twig, root | Snaps when dry | Wire inside, or keep it short and joined to a bigger form |
Clay should cover the core by about 1 cm everywhere. Thinner clay cracks or shows the paper; much thicker clay dries unevenly and cracks.
Ishimwe's real gourd is 30 cm tall; its round body is 18 cm wide and its neck 4 cm wide. He models it at half scale.
You need: a base board about 20 cm by 25 cm (an offcut of plank or several layers of card glued together), soft binding wire about 2 mm thick, pliers, newspaper, masking tape, string, a nail and a hammer (ask your teacher for help).
About two thousand years ago, a potter in Colima, in western Mexico, made this vessel in the shape of a squash. Notice how carefully the real vegetable was observed: the deep ribs curve from one end to the other, the body bulges unevenly, and a small knob sits at one end, just as on a real squash. The potter also chose a clever structure. The squash is hollow, like a pot, and its curved walls hold themselves up, just as an eggshell does, so no armature was needed. Round, hollow forms support themselves; thin parts that reach out into the air are the ones that need wire.
Warning
Safety
Tip
Tall, thin or reaching out? Give it a wire. Round and bulky? Give it a core. Plan every model in three views, and remember the core rule: core size = planned size − 2 × clay thickness.
Which of these need a wire armature: a round avocado, a cassava leaf lifted at one end, a gourd with a long neck, a river stone?
Solution: the lifted leaf and the gourd's neck. The avocado and the stone are compact; they need at most a paper core.
A fruit is planned to be 8 cm wide, with 1 cm of clay all round. How wide should its core be?
Solution: 8 − 2 × 1 = 6 cm.
A real gourd is 27 cm tall. How tall is a model of it at one third of real size?
Solution: 27 ÷ 3 = 9 cm.
Give two reasons for bending the top of an armature wire into a closed loop.
Solution: it removes the sharp end, which could injure someone, and the loop gives the clay something to grip.
Why is the top view useful when planning a still life?
Solution: it shows where each object sits on the board and how the objects overlap, so you know where to fix the wires and cores.
Remember
Sources and credits
