Playing with Clay

Last Thursday I jumped in the car and headed off into deepest darkest Dorset. (Very deep and dark at one point during an altercation with a roadworks lorry, an incredibly narrow lane and a range rover...!). I was on my way to the home and studio of Clare Trenchard, a fabulously talented sculptor to have a go at a bit of animal sculpture. Though this is what I do most days, I really fancied trying my hand at some different materials and Clare's 2 day courses offer the chance to work with wax, clay and plaster. 

A hound by Clare Trenchard in her garden

The first day was all about Chickens. Clare's friend Elizabeth had kindly offered some of her family's animals as models and we ended up with a Welsummer and 2 Silkies as well as a 102 year old female tortoise called Bramble! To get us started we worked with wax on small armatures of aluminium. 

The armature for a chicken

These are what I ended up with. I was quite pleased with them but found the wax a little odd to work with and wanted to make something bigger.

Two wax chickens

On day two we changed animals and had two Indian Runner Ducks. These were much more exciting to me and I set about making an armature big enough for a lifesize bird and decided to work with clay. 

Mr and Mrs Duck admiring my work

This all felt much more 'me' and I really got into the flow of things. I'm really pleased with how the piece turned out and have bought some clay to have another go with at home. 

Me hard at work!

The (almost) finished piece

I really like working with clay, but am definitely not going to give up the wool! I'm thinking about various ways of combining to two but haven't had any amazing ideas as of yet... I'll let you know if I do!


Clare runs both animal and human sculpture courses and they're very popular so book soon if you want to have a go yourself. She's a great teacher and everyone else on the course were lovely people and a pleasure to spend a few days with. Visit her website here.