HANDBUILT / HEARTFELT:
Creating a Meaningful Wall-mounted Portrait in Clay
with Kelly Rathbone Rebo
September 14-27, 2025
In this workshop we will experience all the steps Kelly undertakes to create a wall-mounted portrait bust. The workshop will focus on slab construction, facial anatomy, proportions, and achieving emotional gesture through nuanced surface detail. We will also cover sculpting expressive hands and additional sculptural ornamentation including flowers, hair, headdress, etc.
Finishing attention will come in the form of slips and oxides and selective glaze usage pre and post bisque-firing. Additional gold leaf application will follow glaze firing as a cold-finishing option.
Final pieces will be ready for wall-mounting.
TUITION: USD $2200 inclusive of all studio materials, glazes and firings, catered lunches, welcome dinner, and excursions around the island. We will assist in making recommendations for bookings for nearby hotels, bungalows or home-stays in convenient proximity to Gaya studio (accommodation is not included in tuition).
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE - HANDBUILT / HEARTFELT: Creating a Meaningful Wall-mounted Portrait in Clay
I will demonstrate my complete process of creating a ceramic wall-mounted portrait/bust. The complete process involves slab-built construction of a head, hollowing the piece to an even thickness and reassembling, bisque-firing, glazing, and cold finishing techniques, and the result will be a wall-mount-ready art piece.
In this intensive, each participant will build their own slab-built constructed bust, and I will work one-on-one with each participant to help improve their skills with facial anatomy, proportions, and tricks and nuanced details for achieving emotional gesture. Each participant can add sculptural ornamentation such as flowers, hair, or a headdress, and I will demonstrate options.
We will study and sculpt each main feature of the head to really study the anatomy and practice the sculpting of these features: the eye, nose, mouth, and ear. These features/maquettes will be bisque-fired and will be a great reference for future figurative projects.
After practicing the features, we will then move on to the construction of the head with a focus on anatomy and proportion. Having already practiced sculpting features separately, this should give the participating artists more confidence in how they want their bust/portrait to look.
In this workshop, we will explore the options of the Gaya glazes available, and I will share with you my techniques for layering glazes, washes, and later cold-finishing techniques. Work will be fired at cone 6 or cone 10 temperatures (TBD).
Sunday, September 14 : Welcome Dinner MOKSA
6 p.m Getting to know each other over a delicious plant-based meal which is a work of art in itself. Kelly will make a video presentation of her work and her journey as an artist after dinner.
Monday, September 15 :
Studio orientation, welcoming participants with a short introduction to the course and going through the schedule for the next two weeks. Looking through participant's print outs and making group as well as individual goals for the following days
12:30 Lunch- family style
Students will each make a simple relief sculpture slab with a sketch of a head, focusing on facial anatomy proportions,. This will be a quick project and useful to glaze test on and a reference in facial proportions for future projects.
Tuesday, September 16 :
We begin with demos for sculpting the nose and ears. Each student will then make their own on a small slabs.
12:30 Lunch- family style
The instructor will demo sculpting the eye and mouth, Each student will then make their own.
Wednesday, September 17 :
Instructor will demo on the slab-construction process for forming a head.
12:30 Lunch- family style
Learning drawing in sculptural terms. Finding a sculpture within a blob of clay... like Michael angelo carving marble! Only with forgiveness...
Thursday, September 18 :
Attaching the top of the head, resolving proportions. Sculpting the features using our maquette features as references.
12:30 Lunch- family style
Working one-on-one to personally demonstrate sculpting techniques up close and assist in rebuilding or refining features that need help.
Friday, September 19 :
Cutting the head in half and hollowing to an even thickness and reassembling
12:30 Lunch- family style
Demoing hair and other sculptural headdress ornamentation.
Saturday, September 20 :
Refining and finishing our sculptures
12:30 Lunch- family style
Additional time for extra demos such as: sculpting hands, fixing broken green work before bisque firing, repairing cracks or breaks on finished ceramics.
Refining and finishing our sculptures, load the bisque kiln.
Sunday, September 21 :
(Free Day - Studio is closed )
Monday, September 22 :
Unload the bisque kiln. Glaze demo and begin glazing.
12:30 Lunch- family style
Glazing time
Tuesday, September 23 :
Gaya CAD Tour
12:30 Lunch- family style
Glazing time
Wednesday, September 24 :
Finishing glazing & Loading the kiln.
12:30 Lunch- family style
Q&A, additional presentation on glazes, some inspiration, construction, educational training...
Thursday, September 25:
Excursion day. While the kiln is firing, we will get out and about in Bali
Friday, September 26 :
Opening the glaze kiln
12:30 Lunch- family style
Cold-finishing techniques. workshop concludes by 5 pm
Saturday, September 27 :
Departure Day, no activities, studio closed
**Details of schedule may be subject to change, but overall content will remain constant.