Little One Goes Ceramic!

I have always wanted to create my muse, Little One, in 3D. And the ceramic symposium-workshop in Hungary was a great opportunity to give this a shot! Thanks to the support and supervision by the tutor Neil Wolstenholme, I was thrilled to make it happen. Unlike the three Hello Kitty ceramic figures I created there, Little One was going to be created using different clays and from scratch! How exciting…

Playing with Clay…

Four different clays were introduced here: One each for the torso, the head, eyes and hair. Although the photo below is in random order, we began with the torso. Do you remember back in school when we created pottery by rolling up clay in our hands into coils and layering them one on top of each other? And then smoothing down the layers eventually to create a hollow shape? That is exactly what we did here. The only difference is that we don’t smooth them down with our wet finger or damp cloth as the clay would absorb the water so the clay gets too damp. Instead, we “beat” the sides gently with a wooden stick. Once the torso was done, I carved the round collars in before working on the head separately. Same method used but with different clay.

For the eyes, I once again used another kind of clay, a smoother one with a more refined texture. Flattened two small balls of clay down with a rolling pin till the pair were identical in shape and size. And now the hair! We were at lost how to create hair. Having the hair in one piece would look like Little One is wearing a big helmet or a bad wig. Then Neil came up with a brilliant idea: rolling a lot of thin coils of dark clay and sticking them one after the other for that “strands of hair” appearance. How cool it looks now! Then with that same clay, I added the eyebrows.

First Firing

The figure was then left to dry for a day or two once the figure was completed. This is so that the surface is not too moist to paint on. Before Little One goes into the kiln for the first firing though, I painted her collar and part of eyes white. Two layers of the white paint were applied. Then into the kiln overnight at 900℃. With the time it takes for the temperature to rise to that level then later cool down slowly so the ceramics do not break at a sudden drop in temperature, overnight is quite normal. Note the difference of clay colors before and after! The face is whiter, the torso a lighter blue and the hair greyer. As for the eyes, I painted them light brown and another layer of white was applied where I had already painted. A pity some of the eyelashes indeed fell off during the firing, but it was a blessing. Now they look much more “Little One” with the lashes painted on instead, don’t you think?

Second Firing

And now, ready for the next firing! Unlike our Hello Kitty figures, Little One was not glazed. The types of clays used are different from the white “porcelain” Kitty’s for instance. Namely, the texture here is more rough which would not be suitable for glazing. Into the kiln she went, this time for 1250℃, that’s right, 1250℃! How hot can you get. Similar to the first firing, we need to leave the items overnight, even longer when taking into account the time it takes to reach that temperature and slowly cool down after the firing. And now, look how it all turned out! You can now see the different textures and colors of the clay which makes the piece more interesting. I love how gritty the face and dress turned out, and the hair looks really cool! My Little One in 3D at last!

And what fun that was! Very inspiring and an amazing experience being able to do something different. I enjoyed the clay work thoroughly, something that brought back memories of my school days. Besides, learning more about the various clays and new techniques was also interesting to discover. Added bonus of course was being able to create what I like and always wanted to do: a ceramic version of Little One! I hope to have further opportunities like this in the future and explore more about 3D art. Thank you so much, Neil, for this chance!

Please click here for more about Neil Wolstenholme and his amazing work!