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Hi, I'm Gloria Kenyon, Public Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.
Today we are going to be making miniatures for our next Hand-hour.
They are connected to the 'Nutshell Studies,' which are very miniature little scenes of death.
We are going to be making this cow skull, which will be a little death-like,
but you could also make a miniature unicorn or something else really fun and cheerful if
you don't want to go quite as macabre as a skull.
We are going to be using Sculpey, which you probably used in elementary school.
It's just a polymer clay that you can bake in your oven at home; it's super easy to do.
It comes in all different colors. These are my tools, these are actually Sculpey brand tools,
but you could use any kind of ceramic tool - probably a toothpick, a pencil, a pen - whatever you have.
These just have nice little ends that make it great for shaping, for poking, for creating lines.
To make our skull, we are going to make a little cone with a rounded bottom.
We also want to cut off a little bit of the top.
That's where this is really helpful, we are going to save that part to create our horns later.
I'm just going to set that aside.
You can make this as big or as little as you want, obviously. We are going to go miniature, though.
Now we have got the skull shape. We have the top of the head, the jaw.
We are going to start with our eyes. This is a really handy little ball tool, you could also use the end of a pen or a pencil.
We are just going to indent the clay on either side.
We are going to get that started, and then we are going to keep moving our clay down as we go.
I want to try to create a center demarcation.
We will just pull this tool down.
Again, a pencil would be really great for this, if you don't have these tools.
We are going to just deepen that eye socket,
really get it in there.
We are going to just pull this down. We want to keep that good narrow shape as we go.
We are going to keep that jaw coming down.
Let me get in there.
As you do this, you'll figure out what works best for you - a finger, a tool, whatever you think is best.
It's ok if that center line starts to disappear, you can always redraw it back in there.
Now, I'm going to create that jaw that's kind of weathered away.
I'm just going to start out by scraping some away.
This looks really messy, and that's alright, because you'll just clean it up as you go.
Weathered is messy, so it's alright.
I'm just going to put my extra clay with my clay that I'm going to use with my horns.
This has a nice little pointed tip at the end that's really great for smoothing.
We are going to just smooth out and pull off all these little bits and pieces.
While you want a weathered look, you don't want it to be jagged.
I kind of want it to look a little bit worn.
This is pretty simple, you are just going to roll out a little coil.
Make it pointed on the ends
and then adhere them.
I'm just going to flip it over. It sticks pretty well to itself.
You can just use your finger, I'm going to use one of the tools.
Because this is so soft, you are going to squish the front as you attach these.
We'll go back and clean that up and make that a little bit smoother.
I'm going to just use my finger to smooth that out a little bit and curve those up.
You've got nice little horns that curve up.
You will want to watch out, that is a little bit of a weak spot, so keep and eye on it
before you bake it. Once you bake it, it'll be pretty strong.
Any place where you join anything, it's going to be a little weak.
You can see, we squished our eye sockets, we squished our jaw a little bit.
I'm just going to go in here and fix those up.
I'm going to smooth out these edges on the side where it's a little bit rough.
Once you bake it, however it's shaped, it's going to bake that way. You are going to have rough edges, if you leave rough edges.
That's our finished skull.
You are just going to bake it off. There are instructions on the packet for how to bake them for whatever polymer clay you are using.
Then when you are done, it'll look something like this.