Creating Flor de Barcelona – My Art Process – Clay Sculpture
Flor de Barcelona is a clay sculpture and painted with acrylic paint. This was the first time I had ever made a clay sculpture, so I really enjoyed being able to create this.
Ideas & Inspiration
This is a clay sculpture which was first inspired by panot de flor, which are the flower tiles on the streets in Barcelona, Spain. Other than that, I didn’t have too much of a plan for this piece. I did make a small sketch of what I wanted it to look like, but it wasn’t too detailed or anything.
Sculpting
The most work I did for this piece was sculpting. I started with the base, which was just a piece of clay rolled out and cut to the shape I wanted. I made the main form of the building next. My school has a large extruder for clay which created the right shape for the building, which I then attached to the base. I created the basic shape of it next before I started to add details, so I cut out the doors and added the balcony. I used a drier piece of clay for the balcony and let it sit for a while before I worked on anything near it so that it wouldn’t fall over. Then, I made the doors and added texture. For the bricks, I cut out each individual brick and put them onto the sides. Creating them by hand instead of sculpting them on added a lot more interest in my opinion. Finally, I created the small details such as the plants and railings.
Painting
The next step after the clay was fired was to paint it. I started off by adding in the main colors and started to add more detail from there. For example, I painted the sides of the building with a yellow brown color. Then, I picked out a couple different colors such as green and red, watered them down, and painted them onto individual bricks to give them some variation. For the sidewalk, I did something similar where I painted everything gray before adding in highlights and shadows to make the design stand out more.
My art teacher had some good advice for me while I was working on this project, which was to think of it as if I were making a painting and not just adding color to a clay sculpture. So instead of applying one solid color to a certain area, I started to add variation along with highlights and shadows. Despite being 3D and already having shadows and highlights, the addition of painted on shadows and highlights created more depth and realism.
Reflecion
Now that this piece is finished, I’m very happy with how my first clay sculpture turned out! I took pictures of it and used Photoshop for the first time to edit the pictures so the colors would look right. So, I guess this was a 3-in-1: sculpture, painting, and photography/editing! I hope this inspires you to try out a new art material and create something fun!