I've been waiting for weeks for my life size man sculpture to be fired and yesterday he finally came home with me! My boyfriend came up with me to the studio to help me lug him into my car. He lost a lot of moisture weight in the gas kiln but he was still heavy enough to require two people to transport him. Here are pictures of my guy and the mat of clay I made to accomodate the movement he would make in the process of the temperature increases. It has been an interesting process and just the changes that happen when water based clay dries, heats up and cools down is amazing! He came through the firing pretty well but as you can see a bit from the pictures, he has several cracks in him. Fortunately, the cracks didn't go all the way through the clay. One of the main reasons we hollowed out our sculptures evenly was to prevent cracks. Cracks happen when the thicknesses are uneven. I really tried to be as uniform in the thickness of all areas but there were several places I missed. I will fix these areas with some heavy duty epoxy and mix in some clay grit to mimic the look of the clay: I hope it works! Overall, its been a positive experience and at least he didn't break a part. I think he came out pretty well for the first time doing sculpture this way. Thanks so much for your positive feedback during this process!
