Hello again, guys and welcome to my channel. Today we are going to sculpt this minimalist cat in clay. It's a fun and easy project - I will show you every step of the way. See below for a tool and supply list with support information for this project. Subscribe to my channel for over 500 tutorials on sculpting, painting, jewelry making and more. Thanks for watching! -Jacob Folger, Artist @TheJakefolger
Send me a photo of your cat. I would love to see it. You will find my email address in the "about" section on my channel page @TheJakefolger or message me on my social media below.
Good morning, this is Jacob Bolger, artist-sculptor,
and today we're going to make
a little abstract cat sculpture out of clay.
And we're gonna be starting off with a shape
kind of like this, basically a ball that I formed
and shaped into like this little round mound kind of thing.
I'm gonna put that on, I've got a yogurt lid here
to sculpt on, a nice convenient little way
to have a place to work on.
Now I'm just gonna kind of flatten it a little bit.
Now what I want to do is kind of give the impression
of like a little hip, a little, if you can understand that.
Well, let's see, I'll just push it, push it for now.
And then here, if you can see, I'm kind of forming a head.
So now what I'll do is I'll take a little bit of clay,
roll it into like a little mule like this,
flatten it out, and then I want to pronounce that hip.
It's a cat's hip.
And I want you to try to visualize the cat's hip there.
And then you get a little bit of clay here
and kind of start sculpting a little face.
But it's abstract, so I'm going to end very minimalist
is the idea.
So then I'm gonna take, this will help you out a lot.
I'm gonna take a little bit of clay there
and add it for a little ear.
Can you get the ear?
And put it right there, blend it in.
And that kind of is what gives you the idea.
It's a cat, it's by the little ears.
Now you're trying to get a visual on that, right?
I'm just gonna build this up a little bit
by adding a little bit of clay
and kind of make it a little bit rounder there,
that little hip there.
I'm still kind of just shaping it.
Now what I'm gonna do, set this aside for a minute.
I'm gonna take a little bit of clay
and I'm gonna roll it into a ball
between the palms of my hands like that.
And then I'm gonna roll it into a noodle.
Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a tool
that's kind of wet and I'm gonna score it.
I've got a bucket of, about a cup of water
off to the side here and I'm wetting the tool
where I'm gonna put it on
and where I'm gonna join it to his body.
And that'll make it nice and solid.
It's going to go on right about here.
I'm putting it on and kind of blending it in.
I bring it around, just kind of terminate there
and probably you're getting a really good visual now on it.
Now I'll go up underneath in the bottom and blend this in.
I want that to have one section there,
one piece that I want it to be separate.
Let me curve this tail up a little bit there.
I'm gonna work on the ears a little bit,
try to get them better to where I'm liking.
And it's just pressing it, you know, and forming it.
And I'm just kind of doing the ears
in the back here like this.
I'm blending them in with a little bit of clay
and just kind of go in there and fill that in
and just make it nice, neat, smooth transition there.
It'll also make the ears stronger
so they don't break off on you.
Of course, this clay dries so hard, man.
I don't think you're gonna have a problem with that, but.
Okay, now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get
just a little bit of water on there.
I'm gonna put water on my brush
and I'm just gonna put a little bit of water on.
And then I'm gonna use my fingers to smooth them.
It's like a little feline meditation stone.
What do you say about that?
Just want it to be really smooth.
Just trying to shape it, make it nice and round
and smooth and flowing, you know.
Oh, yeah.
Gently taking my thumb and smoothing the clay.
It's just slightly moist and, you know,
it's moist, obviously, but it's soft
and easy to mold and manipulate at this time.
And you can see it's kind of coming together there.
And this will take a lot, you know,
just a lot of smoothing and playing with it.
And, you know, it'll take some time
to get it nice and pristine.
You can use water, but really what I recommend
is not using a lot of water
because the brush will have more drag if you don't.
Well, that's basically it.
I mean, I'll be here for quite a while smoothing this,
probably for another hour or so, really.
Taking my time going around, smoothing it.
And then when you get to the point where you really like it,
you can just let it air dry.
So that is it for this little tutorial
and I hope you enjoyed it.
And got something out of it.
If you do decide to make a little cat like this,
it'd be really great if you sent me a photo
because I'd love to see how my tutorials are doing.
And yeah, there's contact information
in the video description down below the video
where you can reach me and send me a picture.
And please give the video a like, share it with your friends.
Leave me a comment or question.
I will reply.
Please tell me where you're watching from.
I really do enjoy seeing comments
and people from all around the world.
You know, it's so nice.
And yeah, I mean, I have like 500 tutorials.
I have a number of cat sculpting tutorials
to check them out.
I've been wanting to do this for a while.
I actually made something like this several years ago
and I've been wanting to do a tutorial on it.
So I decided to probably do that today.
And yeah, so that is about it.
And yeah, I hope you like it.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for your support.
I really do appreciate that and have a great day.
Bye-bye.
