Ariel Bowman is an amazingly talented sculpture artist. You should really check out her work: arielbowman.com, follow her on Instagram: @ariel.bowman and attend one of her workshops if you can. I’m always grateful to those artists willing to share their techniques. Ariel so generously shared techniques she’s developed over the years, essentially gifting to us her years of hard-earned work.

Following her solid block carving technique, I am freeing this rhino from his clay dungeon.

By the end of the two-day workshop, held at Roadrunner Ceramics in San Antonio, my guy is almost free. We all get to go back in three weeks with bisqued ware when Ariel will return to share her glazing techniques with us. So generous!

Part of the solid block method is allowing the sculpture to get leather hard with the bottom support of the clay block — seen in this video. I won’t remove it until he is hard enough to cut in half and hollow out, along with the head support there under his chin. Oh! And he needs ears, and some legwork.

 

This artistic journey continues to surprise me! I’m so grateful to be on it.