Category: beginners

Categories
beginners Materials

Mixing Sculpting Materials: What You Need to Know

If you don’t have much experience working with water-based or oil-based clay, you might be tempted to mix materials trying to find the right consistency or workflow. Before you do, read this article—it might save you some serious headaches.

Mixing Scenarios

Have you ever found yourself working with oil-based clay that’s too hard to sculpt, thinking “I’ll use something softer on the surface to make my life easier”? Or perhaps you’re using water-based clay and decide to mix it with another type to achieve the right texture or color?

Think twice before doing this. There are solid reasons why you shouldn’t make this a general practice—or if you do, you need to learn the proper when and why to avoid problems down the road.

I recently had a student who covered his entire sculpture with a different plasticine grade because he thought his original choice was too hard. Halfway through the piece, with all the work already sketched out, he swapped materials and covered everything like a skin.

Another student working with water-based clay decided to use two different types on her piece as part of the design, hoping for more visual interest. At first glance, everything looked fine. But there are important reasons to be careful with this approach.

Mixing Water-Based Clays

It’s not that you can’t use different grades of plasticine or different water-based clays in the same work—it’s how you use them that makes the difference.

When working with water-based clay, consider what you’ll do with your finished piece:

If you’re planning to fire it: You must use clays that fire at the same temperature (or the same cone number, as potters say). Using clays with different firing temperatures can cause your work to weaken or break in the kiln—it likely won’t survive the process.

If you’re making a mold: You’re safe to mix different water-based clays since the piece won’t go through firing. You’re only sculpting to create a mold at the end.

Mixing Oil-Based Clays 

Oil-based clay behaves differently. Even if you’re planning to make a mold (so the work doesn’t need to last indefinitely), you still need to understand how to use different grades properly. The good news? It’s actually quite simple.

Use harder clay for highly detailed areas. Parts with fine details might need harder clay so you can carve without fearing easy damage. For example:

  • Fingers: If your clay is too soft, fingers bend or get squeezed the moment you touch them
  • Facial features: Soft clay won’t stay where you place it, and surfaces blur immediately when you try to smooth them

For these areas, harder clay provides the control you need.

Avoid mixing oil-based clay grades together in the same surface. When you smooth the surface, softer clay requires less work to get even, while harder clay needs more effort to reach the same level. If you have a surface with two different grades, hard clay areas remain uneven and require aggressive smoothing. If you work hard enough to even the hard areas, you’ll wash away the soft areas, this creates a nightmare scenario across your entire surface

Setting Up to avoid problems

In sculpture, since we use many resources and invest significant time, avoiding technical problems as much as possible so you can focus on your work instead of troubleshooting, is the best thing you can do. Here’s a simple checklist before you start:

Environment: Set up your workspace properly (not the living room unless you’re ready for dust and clay bits in the carpet). Make sure you have there right light conditions, enough space and you can remove dust or clay bits with no problem once you finish.

Armature: Ensure it’s strong and steady so it won’t cause problems later. This is a common mistake people have, making a quick armature thinking that will be enough for the job. If the armature don’t hold the sculpture steady while you are working and moves too much, this can bee I BIG PROBLEM down the road. My advice is, make sure it is strong and steady so you don’t have to deal with it later on. I have seen many students having to open up the sculpture to fix armature issues when they are pretty much ready to start detailing the work. That is very annoying!

Materials & Tools: Use the right material for your project and have the appropriate tools ready. The more experience you have the better you understand what you need for the work, so if you are a beginner, start with the basic tools and clay. From there you wind your way.

As you can see, there’s not much to keep in mind, but following these guidelines makes a significant difference in your experience.

 

 

Related articles: Check out “Where to Start if You’re a Complete Beginner” or “Defining the Surface in Clay – Sculpting Tips.“

Want more articles like this? Sign up for our newsletter and get early bird discounts on courses and workshops delivered straight to your inbox.

Categories
beginners Sculpting Tips

How to Create a Portrait in Sculpture: A Step-by-Step Guide

Creating a good portrait is one of sculpture’s greatest challenges. I’ve completed many portraits throughout my career, and I can tell you that capturing true likeness is difficult. However, I’ll guide you through a step-by-step approach that works especially well for those with limited experience. While experienced sculptors often work more organically and intuitively, like I do in the video above these lines. The method I outline here proves valuable in any scenario.

Step 1: Start with the Basic Structure

Before diving into details, remember this crucial point: you must visualize the hair from the beginning. You don’t need to shape it immediately, but you need to see where it sits to get a complete image of your subject. Without considering the hair, achieving likeness becomes significantly harder.

Begin by creating your “blank canvas” using my foundational method. Once you have this base, shape the head using profile views to establish accuracy. First, trace the profile view contour, then the front view contour. This gives you a solid foundation to build upon.

 

Step 2: Establish Your Navigation Grid

Next, find the lines that will guide you through the work. You’ll need both horizontal and vertical reference lines:

Horizontal lines mark:

  • Hairline
  • Eyebrows
  • Eyes
  • Nose
  • Lips
  • Ear placement

Vertical lines define:

  • Face frame
  • Eye centers
  • Nose width
  • Mouth width

With this grid mapped out, you now have a clear system for placing all features exactly where they belong.

Step 3: Build the Three-Dimensional Form

Now that you have your grid and contours traced, it’s time to add depth. Study your subject from four critical angles: 3/4 view from left back and from right back, and again 3/4 from front view left and right. This multi-angle approach helps you trace facial contours more accurately.

Define the depth of eye sockets, cheekbones, chin, and lip volume during this stage. For the inner corners of the eyes, refer back to your profile view to determine how much the eyes protrude forward.

Step 4: Refine the Foundation

After tracing all contours, begin shaping the face while continuously checking your work against the reference. Keep examining the contours from all angles to maintain accuracy. At some point, the face’s likeness should start emerging. You’re still sketching at this stage, but you’re building a solid foundation.

Now you can begin tracing the eye and lip lines into your work. Important note: If you lack drawing experience, practice these lines separately first. They’re crucial for achieving likeness—if executed too loosely, your results will suffer.

Also add basic volume for the ears. Keep this sketchy; you don’t need detailed ear shapes yet, just correct contour and size placement.

Step 5: Create the Features

With your foundation in place, start recreating individual features. Each feature requires its own approach—techniques I demonstrate in my workshops and courses. Focus on ensuring depth, lines, and forms are as accurate as possible. This attention to detail ensures successful results.

This is where the work becomes both challenging and exciting. Taking time to execute this stage properly will significantly improve your final outcome.

If you can complete this process and create a recognizable likeness, congratulations—you definitely have the skill for portrait sculpture. Keep developing it.

 

Taking It Further: The Sculptural Language

Want more realistic results? If you’ve achieved basic likeness but feel unsure about your technique and want to push further, you’re in a good place. This means you’ve successfully reached this level but want more control over your results.

While practice is essential, learning sculptural language more consistently will help tremendously. Just as drawing is a language that translates perception into 2D format using pencils, perspective, and gradations, sculpture has its own language focused on form control.

In sculpture, light and shadows are real, not recreated. Sculptural language centers on geometry. Take the eye, for example: to create a successful eye, you must understand the eyeball’s geometry, as the eyelids and surrounding skin follow this structure. This ensures proper form and volume. The same principle applies to lips, face, head—every form follows this geometric logic.

 

The Importance of Anatomy

When working with the human figure, I always recommend studying anatomy. For portraits specifically, understanding the human head’s structure helps enormously in achieving correct forms. Learning to read the bony structure beneath the skin is probably one of the most important aspects of getting portraits right.

Beyond Technical Skills

Finally, remember that technical aspects—correct proportions, dimensions, anatomy, and sculptural language—while essential, aren’t everything. Consider this: how can a caricature artist create a drawing of you without any proportionally accurate lines yet still capture your essence so completely that you recognize yourself? There’s definitely something more at work that’s harder to explain.

 

What do you think that something is? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this guide helpful. Consider subscribing for more tips and advice, and if you’re interested in learning more about the human form, check out my workshops and online courses.

Categories
beginners Sculpting Tips

How to Start Sculpting as a Complete Beginner

Quick Start: How to Begin Sculpting

To start sculpting, get a block of oil-based clay and three or four basic tools, and begin with simple forms like a head or a hand. Don’t worry about results yet. The goal of your first sculptures is to learn how clay behaves.

 

Step 1: Choose your clay. Oil-based vs water-based.  I like both but they feel different. To make things affordable I event did my research of how to make quality plasticine. Check it out in ” How to make your own plasticine” if you are interested. Other materials like polymers are also an option, but we don’t use them much in the studio.

Step 2: Get the basic tools. You don’t need complicated tools. something like a good couple of spatulas, similar to what we use in the studio. Something you can do yourself or buy in your local art shop. There are some tips on how to make small tools also in this article “make your own tools”.

Step 3: Pick a first project. A simple head or a hand, a creature or whatever comes to mind. If you are doing a human figure, here in this article you have a simple way of making an armature “How to make an armature”.

Step 4: Practice regularly. This is the most important one. Progress comes from regular hours with the clay, make sure you spend time every week in one or more projects.

Now that you know where to start, keep reading to learn how the learning process works and how to keep improving.

 

Start by Playing and Having Fun

If you’re new to sculpting, the sheer possibility of what you can create is both thrilling and a little overwhelming. But here’s the beautiful thing about sculpting: it’s the moment your hands transform that possibility into something real. There’s genuine magic in creating something tangible that you can feel proud of.

My first piece of advice? Simply enjoy the process. Don’t worry about mastering rules or perfect techniques right away. Instead, experiment freely and try things out. Make a quick sketch at home. In my case,  I love exploring how we perceive the physical world around us—questioning what we see, what feels constructed versus natural, tapping into that instinctive part of ourselves. But again this is me, perhaps your interests are different, simply explore what you like.

Think about how children learn: they dive in, play around, and don’t stress about perfection. As adults, we often take things too seriously, and frustration creeps in when progress feels slower than we’d like.

 

Why Enjoyment Matters More Than Technique (At First)

Yes, technique absolutely matters if you want to improve your skills. But without genuine enjoyment, you’ll burn out fast. That’s why I regularly remind my students to take breaks from structured exercises and sculpt something purely for the joy of it. It’s still practice, and if you view it as just more work, that’s your choice—but playful practice will naturally loosen you up and build your skills.

Here’s a mindset shift that changes everything: mistakes aren’t failures, they’re golden opportunities. Every “wrong” step teaches you what isn’t working and shows you how to try something different next time.

This trial-and-error approach is humanity’s oldest and most natural way of learning, and it absolutely pays off.

The Three Pillars: Technique, Methodology, and Intuition

To truly excel at sculpting, you eventually need three key elements:

  • Technique – mastering the proper methods and tools
  • Methodology – developing a structured, repeatable approach
  • Intuition – learning to trust your artistic instincts

Some sculptors are naturally technical but struggle with artistic flow. Others overflow with creative ideas but find the technical aspects challenging. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, you need two things: confidence and the willingness to push your boundaries without fearing mistakes. Playful experimentation builds both sides of this equation.

Head sketch by Javier for Head studies workshop.

Don Quijote Sculpture by Javier.  2014

Putting It into Practice

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Ask yourself: What have I always wanted to sculpt? A portrait? A character from your imagination? Maybe even something quirky like a rubber duck?

Once you have your answer, buy a bag of clay and dive in. Observe everything that happens during the process.

You’ll quickly discover practical answers to questions like: How big should I make this? What tools do I actually need? How does clay behave as it dries? What do I do when I’m “finished”?

Your second attempt will already be leagues better because you’ll bring real experience from your first try—whether that’s about sizing, preventing cracks, organizing your workspace, or choosing between water-based clay and plasticine.

When Are You Ready to Level Up?

The honest answer? Whenever you want to. There are no sculpting police setting rigid timelines for your learning journey—you’re in the driver’s seat, it all depends of what you want to achieve. If you want to excel at performing the human figure then consider joining one of my workshops. 

In my in-person workshops and online courses, I guide students through the human figure step-by-step, covering geometry, structure, and anatomy. Some concepts are straightforward, while others get more technical, especially during the detailed rendering phase where anatomical accuracy becomes crucial.

What you need to succeed is simple: genuine interest and a willingness to embrace the process. With consistent practice comes growing confidence and steady improvement.

Feeling inspired to tackle this adventure solo first?

Absolutely go for it! There’s a wealth of books, videos, and online resources waiting for you. With enough time and dedication, you can uncover nearly everything you need to know on your own.

Here’s the difference between going it alone and joining a workshop or a course: I essentially hand you all the answers on a silver platter. Instead of spending months searching and piecing things together, you get the complete package—proven techniques, essential tool recommendations, must-read books, artistic philosophy, creative influences, and personalized guidance for your unique journey.

You’ll learn either way—whether you take the longer road of piecing things together yourself or the guided path that saves you time and energy. Both offer the joy of discovery, but the experience is very different. It will take more time, more mistakes, and often more frustration. A workshop or course compresses that learning curve.

Understanding Artistic vs. Creative Skills

Artistic expression flows naturally from human intuition—it’s about sensitivity, feeling your work, and letting your inner voice guide your hands. Creativity, however, is your problem-solving toolkit, using intellect and innovation to find solutions when challenges arise.

The most successful sculptors develop both dimensions: an artistic sense that brings beauty and personal style to their work, and creative thinking that handles proper proportions, solid structure, compelling composition, and technical problem-solving.

Sculpting ranks among the most rewarding creative pursuits you can explore. You literally start with nothing and breathe life into something with your own hands. Embrace those early experimental stages, learn from every mistake, and steadily build the skills that will support your artistic journey for years to come.

If you enjoyed this article sign up to my newsletter and you will get free tips and advice in your mail once a month. 

Categories
beginners Materials

Water-Based Clay vs. Oil-Based Clay: Which is Better?

At a glance

  • Water-based clay: cheaper (10 kg can cost the same as 1 kg of plasticine), fast to work, great organic textures, and can be fired. It has to be kept moist or it will dry and crack.
  • Oil-based clay (plasticine): never dries out, gives more control over surface texture, and lets you work on a piece as long as you like. It’s more expensive and softer in warm weather.
  • Choose water-based for large pieces, loose organic work, or anything you want to fire.
  • Choose plasticine for long, detailed projects you’ll cast later.
  • Making a silicone mold? Check that your plasticine is sulfur-free, or the silicone may not cure.

Read the article for in depth info & leave a comment if you liked it 🙂 

Facebook Youtube Instagram

This is a common question I get during my workshops: Is it better to work with water-based or oil-based clay? The truth is that the answer depends on several factors, as well as your personal comfort with each material.

As someone with a wealth of experience working with various materials throughout my career, I find that water-based clay is often the ideal choice for many projects. Its softness, ease of use, and versatility make it highly adaptable for different techniques. The organic, random textures it can offer are almost unique to this material, enriching sculptures in ways that few other mediums can.

On the other hand, plasticine—when of high quality—can offer similar fresh results, especially in industrial applications. If you’re working in the industry, this is of particular interest to you, as plasticine allows for greater control over surface texture, something that can be more difficult to achieve with water-based clay.

Key Technical Differences

The technical aspects of these materials are significant, so let’s take a closer look.

Water-based clay is what I like to refer to as an “alive” material. What do I mean by this? Simply put, you need to maintain the right moisture levels to keep it workable. If you neglect it, it can dry out, harden, and crack. This constant need for moisture control can be a hassle, but it’s also what gives the material its distinct properties. In contrast, plasticine won’t ever dry out or crack on its own. You can continue working with it for as long as you need, with no risk of it becoming unusable.

Temperature and air moisture are also factors that affect both materials. The temperature is particularly relevant for oil-based clays like plasticine—higher temperatures make the material softer and easier to work with. This means plasticine is generally softer in the summer than in the winter. In places with extreme temperatures, this is something to keep in mind.

For water-based clays, moisture levels can affect the drying process. If it’s too moist, the clay will take longer to dry; if it’s too dry, the clay will harden too quickly and become difficult to work with.

Consider the Size of Your Project

The size of your work is another important factor. In the industry, water-based clay is often chosen for large-scale projects. Why? Because it’s quicker to work with and, importantly, it’s more cost-effective. For example, 10 kg of water-based clay could be the same price as 1 kg of plasticine. If you’re working on a large sculpture, the cost difference can be significant, so this is definitely something to consider.

What Are You Planning to Do?

The type of project you’re working on also plays a role in the material choice. If you’re sculpting something that you plan to fire, water-based clay is the obvious option. However, if you’re using plasticine, you have two main options:

  1. Leave it on the shelf: It’ll last for years without any issues, accumulating dust until you decide to use it again (although accidents could happen).

  2. Make a mold: If you want to create a durable version of your plasticine sculpture, you can cast it in another material.

Both options work, but if you need a long-lasting final piece, casting might be the better option.

My Formula plasticine A series.

Personally, I enjoy both materials, but I prefer the workable properties of water-based clay.  That’s why I developed my own A1 soft plasticine formula—which mimics the properties of water-based clay—so I don’t have to worry about it drying out once I’m done. This is the A1 plasticine, a formula I developed myself in the studio after years of testing and refining. You can see me using it in the Saturday sessions at my studio in the following videos. Check them out!

Both water-based and oil-based clays have their advantages, and your choice will ultimately depend on factors like the size of your project, your personal preferences, and the specific requirements of your work. If you’re looking for something that doesn’t dry out and can be molded into any texture, plasticine is a great option. However, if you’re working with larger projects, prefer a more organic texture, or need something that can be fired, water-based clay might be the better choice.

For me, having developed my own version of soft plasticine has given me the best of both worlds. It allows me to work with a material that behaves like water-based clay, but without the risk of it drying out.

I hope this article has helped clarify the pros and cons of each material. Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck with your creative projects!

A Note for Mold Makers

If you’re a mold maker or planning to use the material for molding, there’s one important thing to keep in mind—especially if you’re using silicone, and that is if the material contains Sulfur.

Water-based clays are usually sulfur-free, but oil-based clays, including plasticine, may contain sulfur. If your plasticine contains sulfur, it can interfere with the curing of silicone molds. To avoid this problem, you need to ensure that your plasticine is sulfur-free—either by checking the label or performing a simple test. If the plasticine contains sulfur, the silicone won’t cure properly, and you’ll end up with a lot of frustration. Trust me, you don’t want to learn this the hard way—it can take a long time to forget that kind of mistake!

I’ll be covering other topics in future articles, including working with textures and exploring alternative sculpting materials that behave like clay—such as polymers and certain types of concrete.

If you’re interested in learning more about these materials, consider signing up for the newsletter to receive updates on new articles, tutorials, and upcoming events, including both online and in-person workshops.