The School of the Arts · visual, musical & performing arts
Sculpture, Ceramics & 3D
Thinking in three dimensions — mass, void, and surface, from a pinch pot to a printed mesh.
Wedging, pinch, coil, slab, and the wheel: a first term with clay, from lump to bisque.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~28 hours
Unit I — Clay Itself
Clay bodies and what each forgives · Wedging and why it matters · The stages: slip, plastic, leather-hard, bone dry
Unit II — Handbuilding
Pinch pots and even walls · Coil construction · Slab boxes and seams that hold
Unit III — The Wheel
Centering · Opening and pulling walls · Trimming a foot
Unit IV — Toward the Kiln
Drying without cracks · Bisque firing, plainly explained · Surface: slip, sgraffito, texture
What glaze is, what the kiln does, and how to test your way to surfaces you can repeat.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~20 hours
Unit I — What a Glaze Is
Glass formers, fluxes, and refractories · Reading a glaze recipe · Cones and temperature: what the numbers mean
Unit II — The Kiln
Oxidation versus reduction · Firing schedules and holds · Loading and kiln safety
Unit III — Testing
Test tiles and line blends · Common faults: crazing, pinholes, crawling · Keeping a glaze notebook worth trusting
Mass, void, silhouette: learning to build and carve form that holds up from every angle.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~26 hours
Unit I — Thinking in the Round
Mass and void · Silhouette from eight angles · Armatures and structure
Unit II — Additive Work
Clay sketching in three dimensions · Building up planes · Surface as evidence of process
Unit III — Subtractive Work
Carving logic: what cannot be undone · Plaster and foam carving · Tool care and shop safety
Unit IV — Presentation
Bases and how work meets the ground · Photographing sculpture · A finished small work, critiqued
The figure built in clay from armature to surface, with anatomy carried in from the drawing room.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~30 hours
Unit I — The Armature
Proportion in wire · Weight-bearing poses · Blocking the big masses
Unit II — Anatomy in Clay
Pelvis and ribcage first · Limbs as structured cylinders · The head at small scale
Unit III — Surface and Life
Keeping the gesture alive at finish · Tool marks versus smoothing · Hollowing or casting the result
Brush-based digital sculpting, from blocked silhouette to a mesh fit for print or engine.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — The Digital Lump
Sculpting software and the viewport · Primitives, symmetry, and dynamic topology · Move, pinch, inflate: brush logic
Unit II — Form Discipline
Blocking silhouettes before detail · Retopology in plain terms · Detail passes and knowing when to stop
Unit III — Out of the Screen
Preparing a mesh for 3D printing · Wall thickness, supports, and slicing · Exporting for game engines and renders