Sculpture : Making Realistic Pansy Flowers from Polymer Clay

1. Introduction: Hello, I am Stephanie. I've been a professional artists for the last 10 years. Today's class I'm going to show you how to sculpt pansies. This is my fourth class about flowers. I have done three other classes, notably roses, lilies and wildflowers. In each class about these flowers, I have approached the subject with a slightly different technique. In today's class, I'm going to offer you yet a new technique to sculpt flowers. With those four classes, I am sure you are going to have all the techniques and hands to really find your own way and path, and your own preferences when it comes to sculpting flowers. I would like to emphasize that those four techniques are really interchangeable and they are going to be very useful depending on which flowers subject you are going to pick and sculpt, if you have never worked with polymer clay before. I would suggest to watch my class about the basics first. You can find it on Skillshare as well. Although this class is fit for beginners, I think it's probably more suitable for more advanced sculptors, especially in terms of patience. The class assignment is pretty straight forward, I would like you to sculpt your own pansy flowers. Please also share your project with the class. It's always great to see what students come up with. If you share your project on social media, don't forget to tag me. I go along the money curve, [inaudible] , pretty much everywhere. Without further ado, let's just dive in. 2. Materials: For this class, you are going to need polymer clay, acrylic paint, artistic wire in green. stainless steel wire, masking tape, sculpting tools, brushes, liquid polymer clay, optionally, a pasta machine, optionally an animal candle oven for the in-between baking. 3. Making the Stems: We are starting with the stem. Cut out a piece of stainless steel wire of about seven centimeters. That's two and three-quarter inches. I cut out three pieces, as my final sculpture is going to have three pansies. Cut out as many pieces as the number of flowers you would like. Cover each piece of wire with masking tape. You want to place the wire on one end of the tape and gently roll the wire into the tape, making sure there are no trapped air bubbles. Cut out the excess masking tape. Finish by twisting the stem between your fingers to ensure the tape sticks nicely. Roll out green clay to a thin sheet and wrap the clay around the taped wire. Be sure not to trap any air bubbles under the clay. For this green shade, I mix freely from scraps. Use reference pictures to get closer to a realistic look. I would also suggest you add some brown or a very tiny bit of red clay to get the green a little muddier and more realistic. Cut out the excess clay. Similar to the tape, finish by twisting the stem between your fingers to ensure the clay sticks nicely. You also want to give each stem a bend, as pansies hold the flowers like a head. Once you have wrapped all the wire, bake. 4. Sculpting the Petals: While the stamps are baking, you can start on the petals. I mixed equal parts of female white and certainly translucent clay to have a slight translucency In the final sculpture. Depending on the brand you are using, you might need to test translucency to your liking by baking small batches, roll out the clay into thin sheets, using an neglect to knife, cut out five petals. Four of them will be shaped like rounded triangle and the fifth, like a heart. They will measure about 1.5 centimeters. That's about half an inch. Smooth the edges down with your fingers. Draw in some lines using a metallic tool a pin, needle, or a toothpick. Now take your cool down baked stem, brush the tip with some liquid clay and wrap some translucent white clay around it. Remove each petal from the tile using a blade. Shape each petal slightly. Add a tiny hole into the ball on the stem and then add each petal around it. You are going to start by adding the heart. Then add two triangles facing each other just after the heart. The last two almost overlap each other on top, facing the heart. Readjust the petals and the center if needed. Just behind the petals are tiny leaves, for these, rollout the same green clay used while the stamp. Cut out five leaves per flowers. Each leaf is around one centimeter. Smashed down the edges with your fingers. Draw a line in the middle of each leaf. Then draw lines on each side of each leaf. Remove the leaves from the tile using a blade and place them around the flower. Give the stem a slight bend to tilt the head, and then bake. After baking and cooling off, we are going to paint the petals using acrylic paint. For this particular flowers I used medium magenta, violet, purple, quinacridone magenta, and cadmium yellow. Start by painting the center of the flower with yellow. Then continue by adding a mixture of pink and purple as the first circle, lever circle of white, and then add another circle of pink. Now you can add another layer of colors to make them more vibrant. Finally, using some white acrylic tone down the pink shade and paint the back of each petal, leave to dry. 5. Shaping the Leaves: For the leaves roll out the same ring clay into your thin sheets. Cut out leaf shapes of about 1.5 centimeters. That's half an inch. Smooth down the edges by pushing them down with your finger. Now for the leaf stem, I am using unwrapped green artistic wire. Cut out pieces of wire of about five centimeters, that's two inches. Push one side of the wire into the clay. Put some clay on top and push again. Then draw a centerline and the sidelines to texture the leaf. Push down the clay between the lines to give it some shape. Remove the leaf delicately using a blade. Pinch around the wire on the back of the leaf and give it a form. I do apologize about the lack of focus of my camera. Here's the leaf once done. Simply repeat those steps and bake all you leaves. 6. Finishing the Sculpture: For this Kaltura, I decided to place the pansies into a glass jar. You can also use a small patch, which is going to be a lot easier. I added some glue, then some brown clay at the bottom of the jar. I textured the brown clay to make it look like Earth. I simply used a needle tool, toothpick, and other tools to shape it. Then I dipped all flower stems into liquid clay first and then into the Earth. I finally dipped all the leaves stems into glue and adding them as well. I bake the final sculpture one last time. After baking and cooling off, I painted the leaves. I simply dry brushed some yellow on the edges of all leaves. I then added a darker shade of green with a hint of blue in the center of each leaf. Once the paint is fully dry, you can vanish your piece. This will protect the acrylic paints. 7. Conclusion: Thank you so much for taking this class. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. There's a section just below this video that is called, "Community." If you'd like to share your project with the class, there's also a section called, "Your projects." Since you're on Skillshare, you might want to check out my other classes here. I have plenty to pick and choose from. That should keep you occupied with polymer clay for a while. I hope to see you in my next classes. Until then. Bye.