How to make salt dough sculptures

Sculpture has been used for thousands of years as a record of what happens to people and how they feel. Artists use materials like wood, stone and even ice, glass and sand to make sculptures.

In modern times, stranger stuff has been used – how would you fancy making a sculpture of blood?

We certainly don’t but a famous artist called Marc Quinn has. He has made several sculptures of his head using frozen blood.

Salt dough sculpture

Salt dough is great for sculpting. You can find a simple salt dough recipe from the National Portrait Gallery.

A sculptor might use tools or just their fingers to create the shape they want. Why don’t you have a go? Try moulding some salt dough with a range of tools – spoons, fingers, pastry cutters.

Field For The British Isles

Antony Gormley is a well-known modern sculptor; his name might be familiar to you because he designed the famous Angel of the North in Newcastle. Although the Angel is massive, he has also worked on smaller figures such as his Field for the British Isles.

You can watch this short interview he did in which he talks about the Field.

When they are set up in a museum, his people fill whole rooms and even look as if they are all walking in one direction. It takes many hours and many people to set up this Antony Gormley piece. You can see what’s involved by watching this video clip of when Field for the British Isles was being set up at the National Trust’s Barrington Court in 2012.

Imagine how long it must have taken to make all of those sculptures.