Cathleen Luo - How to Build a Body with the Tube Technique

In this workshop, I’ll share how to build a simple, expressive figure using a tube-rolling technique that I often use in my own sculptures. This approach is great for anyone who doesn’t have access to an extruder.

Rather than focusing on anatomical accuracy, we’ll explore an alternative way of constructing the human figure, one that emphasizes gesture and structure through tubes instead of just traditional pinching, slab, or coil methods. This technique works especially well for figures around half life-size.

By the end of the workshop, you could be creating stunning pieces like these:

Steps

You’ll begin by planning your form and imagining your design. Then, you’ll gently build and assemble the body, making sure it’s well supported and balanced. After that, you’ll refine the shape, finish the surface, and finally allow your piece to dry and be fired.

Workshop Results / Benefits

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have your own completed figurative sculpture — and the skills to adapt the tube-rolling technique for other creative projects.

Required Materials

A wooden dowel, 1/4" and/or 1/2", rolling pin, wood board, wire tool, needle tool, rubber rib, scoring tool (or fork), wooden clay molding tools

About Cathleen Luo

Cathleen “Cat” Luo is an artist and art educator who explores themes of modern spirituality by creating sculptures of deities of humility, joy, greed, and other human experiences. They graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor’s in Visual Arts and Creative Writing and is currently working as a Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. They have exhibited in group shows at the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C., at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their staff show, and at Field Projects in NYC. Luo was awarded the Asian American Arts Alliance's What Can We Do grant to carry out community art programming in Manhattan's Chinatown during Asian American Heritage Month as a way to share their practice and serve the public. They have also received The Color Network's Studio Grant, the SICK Magazine's Grant for Disabled Sculptors in 2023, and CERF+'s Get Ready Grant. They were part of Powerhouse Art's Artist Subsidy Program in 2025, creating large-scale ceramic sculptures with the support of their fabrication team.

Instagram: @catluo27.art