A piece of clay eventually transformed into a white oak acorn.
A recent art project of mine was a white oak acorn sculpture. White oak trees are prolific throughout eastern and central North America. In autumn, their ovoid acorns change their hues from green to brown and fall from their branches. They collect on the ground and are inspected by squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, and me.
When I went searching for white oak acorns to use as models for my sculpture, I picked up an oblong acorn and a stout acorn. Both had similar warm brown coloring. I also found acorns colored black, caramel, and mixtures of pink and green. Even though these acorns were of the same species and were likely from the same tree, their appearances often varied in shape, size, and color. But there are some defining characteristics that make a white oak acorn what it is, and some of those characteristics were explored as I sculpted one.
I decided to make the sculpted acorn into its signature oblong shape. I also decided to sculpt it with a cupule and make it sessile, meaning I would sculpt it with a cap and without a stalk. White oak acorns are often found capless. The shallowness of the cap makes the cap less secure, so when a mature acorn falls and bounces on the ground, the acorn usually goes in one direction and the cap in another.
White oak acorns are generally ovoid in shape.
I sculpted the nut portion first. Its shape was pretty simple to make. The acorn had a thicker diameter at the top, and it narrowed at the bottom. To achieve this form, I started by rolling the clay into a ball. Then I rolled it into shape and pressed down slightly more as I neared the bottom in order to narrow the acorn at that end. I dented the clay at the bottom, creating a shallow concave where I then attached a tip representing the remains of the style.
An X-Acto knife was my tool of choice for sculpting knobs on the cupule, or cap. I also rolled small balls of clay and attached them to the cap in order to further achieve the knobby texture.
For the cap, I took a separate piece of clay and molded it into a shallow bowl. Then I attached this piece onto the top of the acorn. White oak acorn caps are known for being knobby. I molded this texture into the clay with an X-Acto knife by carving small angles into the clay, raising the resulting carved shapes slightly, and refining the surface of each individual knob. I also rolled a few small balls of clay, attached them directly to the cap, and blended them. Larger knobs occurred at the top and sides of the cap while smaller knobs lined the edges of the cap.
After completing the sculpting portion of the project, I baked the acorn to set the clay. It was then time to paint.
I chose to sculpt the acorn with brown clay because the color provided the perfect base for future layers of paint.
The brown clay provided a really nice base color for the acorn. The coloring of the real acorns that I mimicked included beautiful reddish-brown tones and orangey highlights. Variances of these hues were painted onto the clay in multiple layers. Glazing, the process of painting with thinned paint, created natural depth and richness for the nut as it allowed previous layers of paint to show through following layers.
Painting the cap required thicker paint and less glazing. I imagined this acorn lying on the damp ground, its cap coloring becoming blotchy and darkening. It was also grayer compared to the nut. While the nut portion largely required painting in long strokes, the cap required dabbing and patting paint onto it.
And it was done!
After layering paint and sealing it with a fixative, the white oak acorn was complete.
As I sculpted this acorn, I thought about how incredible it is for something measuring about an inch long can grow up to be well over sixty feet tall and live for hundreds of years. The resulting tree would be home to numerous forms of wildlife, from birds and squirrels to opossums and ants. And it would serve as a food source, be it elements of the tree itself (including acorns) or wildlife that the tree would host. The tree would also release oxygen during photosynthesis, doing its part to help sustain life as we know it on this planet. While an acorn might seem unassuming as it lies on the ground, so much importance is attached to it.
Unlike a white oak tree that can produce acorns naturally, I needed a few supplies.
Supplies I used included Sculpey III polymer clay and Liquitex Basics acrylic paint as well as Krylon Matte Finish to seal the painted acorn.