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I made five support rails for my wall relief, all are 1/2 inch thick. Three of them are 2 inches tall & 5 inches long. Two of them are 2 inches tall & 8 inches long.

First, I took a large ball of clay and I started to flatten it. Next, I started throwing the clay until it became more flattened. Then, I put two 1/2 thick rolling guides on both sides of a thick slab of clay so that the slab would be 1/2 inch all the way around. Next, I lightly sketched the dimensions for the three short rails, using a ruler to measure, onto the clay. Then, I used a wooden knife and a butter knife to cut out the rails. I did this same method for the two longer rails. Lastly, I took the scraps and wedged them together until I had a nice ball of clay and placed it into the large bag of clay.

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The dimensions of the backboard are 1/2 inch thick, 11&1/2 inch wide, and 7 inches tall.

First, I took a very large ball of clay  and I started to flatten it. Next, I started throwing the clay until it became more flattened. Then, I put two 1/2 thick rolling guides on both sides of a thick slab of clay so that the slab would be 1/2 inch all the way around. Next, I lightly sketched the dimensions for the background, using a ruler to measure, onto the clay. Then, I used a wooden knife and a butter knife to cut out the backboard. Lastly, I took the scraps and wedged them together until I had a nice ball of clay and placed it back into the bag to use at some other time.

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I set up all of my rails on top of my background to check that that they would all fit and stand up correctly.

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I slipped and scored all of the rails to attach them to my background. First, I took one of the longest rails and put a good amount of slip on the edge. Next, I placed the rail, one inch away from each side, on the background so I could indicate where to slip and score on the background as well. After doing this, I put more slip on the background and on the edge of the rail and scored both of them. Then, I placed the rail where I indicated and pressed down so to stabilize it. Next, I grabbed a small wooden plank to tap on top of the rail to join it to the background even more so. Finally, I took some more slip on my fingers to seal any crack and such so that the rail looked completely joined with the background. I repeated this process with the smaller rails and ended with the last longer rail.

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I took a sizeable ball of clay and began to form it into the general shape of a Hershey's kiss to get the elongated snout with the head.

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I took a small ball of clay and formed it into a rounded trapezoidal prism. After I attached the nose to the end of the snout, I used a tool with a small rounded end to make the nostrils.

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I took two small, thick balls of clay and flattened them with my fingers to make the upper lips. After attacking them, I had to add some more clay to really define the upper lips. Then I took another small ball of clay and flattened it with my fingers and attached it below the upper lips to make the lower.

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To make the eyes, I lightly pressed into the head with my thumbs where I would put the eyes. Then, I took two small balls of clay of the same size and placed them I had indicated. Next, I took four small worm-like pieces of clay to make the eyelids. After attaches those to above and below the eyes, I added clay above the eyes to create the eyebrow ridge, which goes from the top of the eyelids to the topmost part of the forehead.

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I decided to only have half of the head on the wall relief because I thought it would look a little weird with the entire head protruding out of the background. I also decided not to cut it right down the middle because I wanted the entire snout to be visible. After cutting it in half, I began to hollow the inside out. I used the small loop tool to do so and I was able to gauge the thickness of the clay by putting it in between my fingers. It took me about two days to completely hollow out the head and the thickness of the inside ended up being thinner than 1/2 and inch.

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While I was hollowing out the inside of the wolf head, I accidentally poked the loop tool through the nose.

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I fixed the nose by taking a flattened somewhat large marble-size piece of clay and attaching it where the original nose used to be. I had to make sure it was attached from the visible view as well as inside the head. So, I took a small amount of slip to attach the new nose, both on the inside and outside. After making it look the way it was before the accident with only two little holes as the nostrils, I used a toothpick to indicate the philtrum.

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12. Attaching the wolf head to the background

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12. Attaching the wolf head to the background

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I attached the wolf head using the slip & score method. After putting a good amount of slip onto the edge of the wolf's head, I placed it down on the background to gauge how to center it and where to put slip on the background. Then, I put more slip onto the background and on the edge of the wolf's head and scored both of them. Next, I positioned the head onto the background and pressed down as much as I could without crumpling the head. Then, I let it sit for a little while and let gravity work in my favor, since I could not use the small wooden rail and tap the top of the head, like I did with the support rails. I came back and put some slip on my fingers and sealed all of the cracks. The back of the head, however, did not touch the background. There was a very small gap between the head and the background, so I decided to make that the "hole" where air could escape through.

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I used a toothpick to lightly carve on the surface of the clay to indicate the side slits of the nose.

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To make the ear, I took a ball of clay, about the size of a golf ball, and began to flatten it. I mainly used my thumb to press into the clay in order to flatten it and to make it concave. Oncce I shaped the clay into an ear, I had to trim it down becase it ended up being a little to big and I didn't want it to be disproportioned. After trimming the ear by about 1/2, I slipped & scored the bottom of the ear to the top of the head. It was a little difficult to do any clean-up around the ear, considering the little amount of space between it and the background. Even though I wasn't able to clean it up very much, I decided it would work out since i would be doing the fur next.

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I used a wooden pencil-shaped tool that I found in my house to lightly scratch the surface of the clay to get the effect of fur. I started near the muzzle, where the fur is not as pronounced as it is near the cheek and neck areas. I just used the tool and did very short and light marks on the clay. That took me one work day to do. The next day, I did the fur around the eye and the ear. Both of which required light to moderate scratches with the tool. Then, I used the tool to make deeper marks around the cheek and neck, since the fur is thicker around that area. I didn't carve the fur itself, but the space between the fur, which ended up being a bunch of curved triangle shapes.

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I printed out clip-art of 4 different types of leaves (I chose maple, sycamore, oak, and aspen). I put the paper leaf on the background and used a toothpick to lightly trace  on top of the paper, so that after I lifted the paper off there would be an outline of the leaf there. After doing this, I used the toothpick to trace the leaf even harder. It was a long process particularly because of all of the little "clay boogers" that came off while carving. I free-handed the midribs and the veins, which were not as deep into the clay as the stems were. I did make sure to fully understand the anatomy of the different leaves to get the veins and the thickness of the stem correct.Then, I took a wet spong to clean up the surface as it was a little messy from the "clay boogers" (even though I was able to pick up most of them and put them onto some clay scraps). I repeated this process for all 18 leaves (and yes, there is a specific reason why there is 18).  This process took me about 2 1/2 days.

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Just when I thought I was pretty much done, I discovered a thumb-sized dent in the background and two other small nicks, probably from one of my family members moving my project. The larger dent was on the aspen leaf while the other nicks were on the sycamore. So, I took a small blob of slip and a very small ball of clay to patch the dent over the aspen leaf. I smoothed it over with my finger and a wet sponge to make the surface even again. I did the same thing with the smaller nicks on the sycamore leaf, but it required a smaller amount of slip and clay.

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To fix the leaves that got misshapen and to emphasize the others leaves, I used a toothpick to run through the outlines of the leaves a little big harder than I did the first time. I also used a wet sponge to clean up the "clay boogers."