I did more work today on the eyes, eyebrows, cheeks and hair, I’m just now starting to like where it’s going.

I decided that since this model is so deep and heavy, I would rough hollow the back out, so I got it off the easel and standing vertically on the work bench so I could unscrew the backer board to access the inside. I probably took out about 35# of clay from the back, it was a bag and a half worth. With it being lighter I screwed the backer board back on and then laid him down flat so I could unscrew the bottom board to give the bottom a curvature. Once that was done I screwed the bottom board back on so it keeps the side baords stable…

I made three of these before I set the mold aside for now, I really need to make a set of block molds of the five plaster sections before using the mold more because it’s the only mold I have since it was made directly off of the clay model. Here’s a shot of the three pressed clay lions drying out, it’s easy to see how much the clay shrinks in the drying process by comparing the first one on the left with the most recent one on the right, the shrinkage is about 1/2″ to 5/8″ of it’s length.

Done with the model for tonight, I guess I spent about 3 hours so far on it, long way to go yet. I worked on the hat more, moved the eyes out a bit further. The bottom is currently horizontal due to the form, but when the model is done mostly and firms up, I’ll be unscrewing the bottom board of the form and I have a template with a curve, the bottom of the sculpture gets a curve, concave with about a 1/2″ rise in the arc. And now after a little more work, I stopped on this for tonight, I wound up moving the hat down about 1/2…

Now that I have the half ton of clay I ordered I decided to start with this model scaled to compensate for two shrinkings of clay. It’s inspired by a circa 1900 carved keystone I removed from a buidling facade around 1976. I have the other one I removed and so I was able to get the exact size of the stone and depth of the face etc from it to work with. I always called this one a cowboy due to the hat which years ago I thought suggested a cowboy hat, but it actually doesn’t seem to be, but is some kind of soft men’s hat with an…

The kiln reached final temperature just 11 minutes sooner than I estimated, I’ll open it up in the morning and see what I have. Meanwhile, after finishing another plaster piece mold of a design I used to cast about 30 years ago, I pressed clay into it now and we’ll see how it turns out. It took 10-1/2# of clay, the wall thickness of the clay is about 5/8″, and it is 10″ high, 4-1/4″ wide: Now about 3 hours later I was able to remove the lion, here he is shown next to one of the cut down wall plaque versions: The five pieces in the kiln all turned…

The program I came up with was 7 stages and started off with a 6 hour preheat @ 200 degrees F with a temperature rise of 60 degrees per hour, so it took about 2 hours to get to 200 degrees. I had also placed the four lion blocks but not the cherub in the kitchen oven overnight @ 150-160 degrees. Then it continued with segments 2 through 7: S2- 80 deg/hour to 280 deg S3- 100 deg/hour to 550 deg S4- 80 deg/hour to 750 deg S5- 150 deg/hour to 1100 deg S6- 180 deg/hour to 1700 deg S7- 80 deg/hour to 2060 deg with a 10 minute hold…

I was able to get the formula/factor to calculate the double clay shrinkage, so that issue is solved now. I also have 1,000# of clay coming tomorrow so I can start work on the next model. Meanwhile, I decided to make another design of mine into the clay-press format, it’s my old lion Nr.1265 which appears in my 1980 brochure as a wall plaque; I decided to revert him back to the original design which was a block shape, this required hand-recreating the original form, casting a rubber positive in my current mold and then making a new plaster piece mold of it. Here’s the rubber positive and the mold;…

I’m going to have to figure out what the clay shrinkage actually is and allow for TWO shrinkings to wind up with the size I want to do pressed clay versions of my work. I found the little cherub plaque really loses a lot of it’s visual impact due to the shrinkage. The original was 10″ wide and the fired terracotta is only 8-7/8″, that’s quite a reduction. So the way it has to work now is making a clay model large enough to compensate for it’s own shrinkage plus the shrinkage of pressed clay copies of it, I’m not great at math enough to easily calculate what this will…

Ive seen this years ago on West 12th street, the old St Vincent’s student nurses residence building, built in 1924 it features two entrances with these roundels depicting a nurse’ portrait. As it turns out, they are almost exactly the same size as my wolf roundel and my tigress roundel- about 20″. I really like this design, I may very well add it to my list of possible models to do. By the time this building was built in 1924 the facades were starting to get plain and devoid of ornaments, this building’s only real attraction is the entrance, the upper floors are just plain bland brick, nothing exciting at…