Ceramics for Beginners: Wheel Throwing (A Lark Ceramics Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)The book is easy to use and very informative for a new potter. I've tried several of the projects and have had good success following the tutorials.

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In the same bright, open design as the well-received Ceramics for Beginners: Hand Building, this second entry in the series offers an introduction to the mechanics of wheel-thrown ceramics. Artist Emily Reason takes the beginner ceramist through nine projects, starting from one of two fundamental forms (cylinder or bowl). Color bands throughout point the reader to related information on various techniques, while gallery sections provide inspiration.

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Children, Clay, And Sculpture Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is extremely useful for classroom teachers and homeschooling families alike. It slowly and thoroughly works through the progression of skills from first using clay to creating finished sculpture. The chapters include information for teaching the skills, multiple examples of professional artwork that can be studied to view the technique at hand, tons of pictures of student work with the age of the student identified (very helpful for knowing how to set your expectations at a realistic level) and every chapter includes free exploration ideas as well as specific exercises.
Chapters:
Before You Begin
Explorations
Making Sculpture
Sculpting in Relief
Animals
Heads and Faces
Figures
Improving Sculptures
Finishing and Displaying Sculpture
I have taken classes with Cathy Topal; she teaches in the Education department at Smith College, helping prospective teachers learn how to teach art. The care and attention she has taken to laying out the exercises in this book clearly reflect this experience - she can think both like an experienced teacher of art and like a mentor to new teachers. This book is a valuable purchase for any art teacher or homeschool family and can be used with students from age 4 to high school level. It will grow with your child and can be used over and over to explore topics in more depth in subsequent years. I give it my very highest recommendation.

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Kids will happily dig into the soft, malleable medium, exploring its possibilities. They'll break the clay apart, rejoin it with water, try to model it into recognizable shapes, and cut out great big slabs to design. Pictures of professional sculptures, as well as objects created by kids, fill the book. Children will think it's playtime—you don't have to tell them they're learning, too.

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The Great Clay Adventure: Creative Handbuilding Projects For Young Artists Review

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(More customer reviews)The concise, clearly worded directions are easy to follow. No wasted words; no partial explanations. In the photographs accompanying each project, I like the mix of student and mature work. Also commendable are the explanations of how basic handbuilding techniques can be combined to produce lively ceramic art. All in all, The Great Clay Adventure stimulates the imagination. I highly recommend this book for clay artists, art teachers and school libraries.
Barbara McKenzie, Ph.D.
Professional Potter
Instructor, Durham Arts Council

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Encourage elementary and middle school-age kids to build their clay-sculpting skills at home with these lessons and projects designed for use in the classroom. They'll model a pinch pot, coil animals, fossils, vases, masks, and tiles that they can embellish with rubber stamps. Best of all, these projects will foster children's confidence in their abilities and stimulate new ideas.

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Celebrations With Polymer Clay: 25 Seasonal Projects Review

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(More customer reviews)It is a beautiful book to look at and to admire. But if you are a beginner I suggest going with "New ways with Polymer clay" and or "The polymer clay techniques book". The Techniques book is very helpful!! I loved this book but for now all I can do is look and dream.

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Celebrate a year's worth of holidays, festivities, and special occasions with polymer clay creations. The 25 projects include party favors, center pieces, wreaths, arrangements, displays, and decorations for weddings, birthdays, showers, and seasonal holidays.Beginning and advanced polymer clay artists will find helpful step by step photos and instructions to guide them to successfully complete ornaments, dolls, Easter bunnies, May baskets, Halloween decorations, and much more.Techniques such as caning, stamping, and transferring are shown and explained in easy to follow detail. As a bonus, readers will learn how to transform polymer clay into graphic applications such as cards, giftwrap, journals, albums, and books.

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Modeling Clay Animals: Easy-to-Follow Projects in Simple Steps Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this for my daughter for Christmas. So far she has only made the pig but the instructions are super easy to follow and there are a ton of cute projects. Highly recommend!

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Modeling with Polymer Clay (Artist's Library series #33) Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently discoverd this book by David Kracov and had to purchase it to see how close I could come to duplicating his sculpting technique. So far I am very happy with the results, and considering the fact that he uses a clay that I have not used in the past, I consider this a good selling point for his book. I would not recommend this book for someone just getting into clay sculpting as he leaves out some vital information (or so I believe) and some of his instructions are very vague. But if you've learned the basics of sculpting characters from another source or are a natural artist, I think you should be able to glean some very useful design concepts from this book. Mr. Kracov is very talented and I hope he publishes another book soon. I will be watching and waiting for one.

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In this book you'll find clear and concise instruction on how to model figures using colorful polymer clay. With an emphasis on human and animal caricatures and characters, you'll start with a simple ball of clay and finish with a striking work of art. It's easy, creative, and fun. Now everyone can learn to sculpt as author David Kracov demonstrates each step of the way.o Discover why polymer clay is such a user-friendly mediumo Find out what you need to start modeling right awayo Master rolling, blending, baking, gluing--even using a pasta maker to roll out sheets of uniform thicknesso Use templates to create clothing in clayo Learn to add realism with detail--those all-important wrinkles, creases, and foldso Follow along step by step to create 6 wonderfully wacky characters

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Modeling the Figure in Clay, 30th Anniversary Edition: A Sculptor's Guide to Anatomy (Practical Craft Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)Wow, what a book. I have been searching for the right book to help me build a human body that looked believable in sculpture and this is the one. Lucchesi creates the form by first creating an armature, then building a skeleton onto it (ribcage, pelvic girdle, etc.), then adding the muscles, then adding the skin. A must for anyone who would love to sculpt anatomy like Rodin and Michelangelo. Lucchesi's head book is just as good.

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For thirty years, Modeling the Figure in Clay has been an indispensable anatomical resource for people who think, see, and understand form best in the round: sculptors. In the thirtieth anniversary edition of this classic work, master sculptor Bruno Lucchesi invites you on a guided tour of the human form. Follow him as he creates a figure in clay—literally from the inside out—starting with the skeleton, laying on the muscles to show male and female anatomy, and finishing with a complete figure sculpture with every detail of face and hair carefully modeled. BRUNO LUCCHESI's work has been added to the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Dallas Museum, among many others. Lucchesi has received awards from the National Academy, the National Arts Club, and the Architectural League. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1962-1963, he won a Gold Medal award from the National Academy of Design in 1990, and was awarded the Polich Tallix Foundry Prize from the National Sculpture Society in 2009.

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Modeling the Head in Clay (Practical Craft Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book (along with several others) while taking a class in sculpture. I found it to be the most informative and inspiring of any source, including my sculpture teacher. Using a series of close-up, detailed photographs, the book walks the student through the steps of creating a clay head. I followed them and made a good (for me) sculpture of a man's head and later a bust of a woman. I went on to make other clay faces, incorporated into mugs and pots. I don't pretend to be a great sculptor but, thanks to this book, I am able to make recognizable sculptures. The excellent directions include how to control surface texture using water and a brush; it is possible to make clay look like skin. If you are struggling to bring clay to life, this book doesn't just tell you how, it shows you how.
Randall Black

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Creative techniques step-by-step. This book offers the reader an opportunity to watch one of our foremost contemporary sculptors at work, to see not just highlights of the creative process, but every step from beginning to end.In order to recreate the immediacy of an actual workshop situation, Bruno Lucchesi takes a single life-size head through all the stages of roughing in, modeling, refining the surface, and finishing and texturing, so that the reader can see exactly how he positions and models every detail.

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Mudworks: Creative Clay, Dough, and Modeling Experiences (Bright Ideas for Learning) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is far better organized than some activity books by other authors. Every activity has a symbol in the corner of the page indicating the age range for each project. Additional symbols for cooking, no cooking, air dry, bake dry, edible, caution, and "adult supervision always necessary" are used when applicable. These symbols make it very easy to flip through the book to find a good project for your child(ren). It is especially useful when trying to find projects for children of mixed ages. The layout of the directions is excellent with one project per page, materials clearly listed, mixture process easily explained, and then many optional variations and ideas to further change or expand on the basic project.
Lots of dough's, modeling compounds, homemade beads, plaster and papier mache projects. A section with edible items such as dog biscuits, pie crust, gingerbread and pretzels. At 150 pages you can imagine there is a lot here to keep you busy for a long time. Many of the projects can be made with ingredients most people have on hand at home. Some projects are fast and easy and others are more complex.
I would highly recommend this for every parent, teachers of young children, and even babysitters. This would make a great birthday gift as an alternative to toys, for 2 year-olds and up. I have found this very helpful on days when my children seem bored with our usual daily routine and on rainy days. As a homeschooling mother I have a lot of projects to do with my children, many of which I know are usually done in preschool or kindergarten.
WONDERFUL!

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Categorized by art media, this book offers a delightfully messy range of creative activities for children to explore and experience.

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