Apostle Peter Figurative Sculpture
The many exciting adventures artists get to enjoy include those times when they find themselves engaged in self-initiated work. One example of this for me was when I was working on this polymer clay sculpture of the Apostle Peter walking on water, as described in Matthew chapter 14. What an incredible experience it was exploring the many opportunities for detail and textural variation found in trying to convey a sense of this singular event.
This project was, among other things, an exercise in bringing together, in harmonious unity, the elements of nature’s violence and man’s determination. This of course meant trying to orchestrate some of the visual manifestations of these forces. Anatomy, expression, gesture, and repeating patterns constitute a significant portion of the visual vocabulary I had to work with.
Polymer clay is a fantastic sculpting medium. It comes in many different colors. When properly conditioned, it’s a wonderfully workable material which can be baked into its permanent hardened state right in your home oven! Pretty cool stuff. It’s so appreciated among traditional artists to have the advantage of modern materials which the old masters could have only dreamed about. So while the underlying principles of art and design remain the same, the options available for expressing those principles continue to expand.