English Coat of Arms

For this project we would be making different coat of arms for the elenor cross project. My part of this project was to work on the english coat of arms. The first step was to do a rough drawing to get a different feel for the types of elements to be included. Photos of other contemporary coat of arms from the same period were looked at and design elements like picking english ivy were chosen. Different style of the three lions on the sheild were looked at and patterns were looked for that were similar in the different photos. The sheild is then measured and drawn out so a wooden base can be made.

The wooden base is used for a scaffold for the clay sculpture. It is important that the wooden scaffold be sligtly smaller then the sculpture and have a suitable service for the clay to adhere to, but be large enough that excess clay is not wasted, and sturdy enough to hold its form.

Once the scaffold is complete it is time to start the sculpture itself. I prefer to start with slightly excess clay and then remove it until it is the proper height. Elements that will be similar, like the ivy leaves I make one that i find to be correct, and then use that one to make copies of for the other leaves. The Lions themselves I left for after I had completed smoothing the sheild.