Sculpture Demonstration Recap

So, last week’s sculpture demonstration was a fun time for everyone involved, or at least it seemed to be!  There were about 50 attendees, and it was great to see both familiar and new faces in the group.  I’m grateful there were a lot of insightful questions to keep me on my toes!  As planned, we reviewed basic sculpture materials and tools of the trade, and discussed the “lost wax” casting process.  Since many of the artists attending were painters, I tried to present material that was both engaging and informative.  Following our discussion of the materials and technical stuff, I went into a demo, sculpting my own head!

What was neat was that we talked equally about the really objective concepts necessary to representational art and the more esoteric mindsets which are also important in creating art that’s lifelike and engaging.  Regarding the observation of a subject for translation into sculpture, it’s very helpful to focus on shapes and edges in particular.  All we really need to get started is a 360 degree view of the model and the ability to copy the various silhouettes of the model within the corresponding angles of our sculpture.  Once these basic relationships are established, we can refine the work with the attitude of bringing the illusion of life to the piece.  This is done in sensitively handling surface texture, subtile adjustments to facial expression, and special effects such as glints in the eyes.

The sculpture I worked on was pretty much started from scratch for this demonstration.  The style was essentially that used in the photo of the head sculpture above, and the piece was by no means finished in an hour and a half.  But, it gave the class a good look at the techniques of clay application and carving back with the tools to match the reference material (photos in this case).  I think watching the whole process kindled or rekindled in some class members a desire to try their hands at 3-D!  My next scheduled sculpture demo will be November 6 at the Alden Art Society.  More details on that later.  Hope you can come out and catch the sculpture bug!