Art with Ms. Kathleen: the Sculpting Adventures on a Hunt for the Rare Unidolphin

Hello Blog World,

The adventure began in Ms. Kathleen's art class. My first painting with Ms. Kathleen was the 5 little pumpkins, than Cardinals in a Tree and we finished our hedgehog paintings in the impressionist style and decided to make a sculpture. I choose to make a Unidolphin and that's how the adventure began.

When I walked into art class after my one week vacation, that Friday, I saw a dolphin armature on the table. An armature is what you use when you are making a big clay sculpture to support the clay. My friends Gracey, Mallory, Charlotte, Pippen, Zuzu and Annie (Pippen, Zuzu and Annie are dogs) were there working on sculptures (the dogs were not doing the project). I sat down and started placing clay on the armature. When I added all the clay onto the armature it looked like it was very heavy to lift for me.

My teacher Ms. Kathleen had made the armatures using wire and shaping them to look like animals. I chose a dolphin that looks like it is jumping out of the water and then I customized it to look like a Unidolphin. We used oil based clay, it feels like air dry clay, but it doesn't dry when exposed to air. You must bake it to harden the sculpture. You can bake it in your oven at 275 degrees temperature for 1 hour. Once it's hard and dry you can paint it with acrylic paint or glaze it. We painted it with acrylic paint for professional artists.

I recommend you use oil based clay for projects that will take a much longer time and require that they are baked in the oven and then painted. However, air dry clay works just as well, if you finish your sculpture before the clay dries or turns white. If it turns white you have to add a lot of water to soften the clay. If you use air dry clay make sure to paint it when it's white and hard.

Two weeks later, I added the horn to my Unidolphin and I starting painting it. Here's what it ended up looking like: