The armature

Here's an armature for one of the barn animals-- this is the wooden structure that will support the hundred pounds or so of clay that will eventually form the sheep, which I'll then create a mold of in plaster. After the plaster mold is pulled off the clay sculpture and cleaned, it's fastened tightly back together and filled with molten microcrystalline ​wax. After the wax has begun to harden forming a thin shell in the mold, the rest of the liquid wax is poured back into the wax pot. It's sort of like making a hollow chocolate Easter bunny.

Armature for the sheep sculpture. 

Armature for the sheep sculpture.