Making sculptures by carving them out of materials such as wood and stone is a process that dates back to the early human era and is one of the first forms of art to emerge. In this process, the artist creates a sculpture by cutting away and removing solid material from a larger piece until it reaches the intended form. It can be a time-consuming process because of the hard and heavy materials, such as granite, marble or wood.
In modeling, the artists creates the sculpture by manipulating raw materials, softer than stone or wood, to create a three-dimensional form. While similar, the primary difference between modeling and carving is that modeling requires the use of soft materials that can be readily shaped by hand. For this reason, clay is most frequently used in sculpture modeling, with other common materials such as plaster of paris and wax following.
The sculpture casting process makes a sculpture by using a modeled sculpture as its base to create a mold and then using another material to coat it. The two key methods of sculpture casting are sand casting and "lost wax" casting. Though both date back several hundred ears, the latter is the more typically used method. Most bronze sculptures are created by casting over a mold because bronze is smoother than the mold itself.
Assemblage sculpture is the most recent process of sculpturing to emerge. Techniques used in the assemblage process consist of combining and bringing together different materials until a 3-D object is formed. Just as collages became popular in the early 20th century, so did assemblage sculpture, as it was the collage in a more physical and tangible form.