The Swamp of Creative Juices

Its great being back at school.  We have been learning about sculpting busts over the last two days.  I have found it … Frustrating, fun, absorbing, theaputic, soothing, exiting, wonder making (ie wonder what it will look like if I do this….LOL..)  Any how here are some shots of my work in progress.

Caption: Covering the armature with wet clay

First we made an armature out of a wood post screwed upright onto a square base board.  We covered it with a large paper ball on top of the post.  The paper had to be packed together to make a solid base to put the clay on.  Plastic is pulled tight over the ball and down the post with tape.  This is so the head can be removed easily and also so the clay doesn’t stick. We then built up the Southern Stoneware clay over the top, by attaching it a small piece at a time.  The Clay comes from the south island.  Our tutor likes to use local clay, not imported clay.  Hey makes sense to me.

We needed to get the coverage fairly thick to enable plenty of depth to carve features out later and yet not too thick or the clay would sag and/or make more work later when we hollow out the head from the inside.  As we attached the wet clay a piece at a time we attempted to get a general head shape.

Caption: Side view of bust, first stage

As you can see however the jaw line was not defined enough and the whole face slopes outwards on an angle at the bottom of the jawline.   So with a push here and a cut there I managed to remove quite a bit of the jaw underneath and add more on the side to give him a better jaw line.  I also made the face more perpendicular by cutting straight down from the forehead.

Caption: Marking out the facial features, stage 2.

The next stage was to mark out where the eyes, nose and mouth would go.  The jaw line needed looking at again and I think I placed the eyes too high bringing up the rest of the face too high as well.  So I added the features down some what.   I think now that I should have moved them down even further.

Caption: Putting on the facial features, stage 3 side view.

I.didn’t bother to try and make it look like anyone specific, it was hard enough doing the proportions.   AND THE EARS…. god they are the hardest….  Ill have to do some drawings of ears to get a better handle on how they are constructed.

Caption: Putting on the facial features, stage 3 side view.

The next thing we have to do is cut the bust in half and remove the armature.  Whoppee what fun… LOL.   Ill have a go at that tomorrow.