Starting point: Nature
Summary so far:
Starting artist: Anj Smith (painter)
Anj Smith's artwork is 2D only, as she is a painter and not a sculptor - but the depth and implied texture in her work made me wonder what it would be like to see her pieces of art personified in sculpture.
I am interested in bringing her 2D concepts to life through sculpture, with my own adaptations.
Clay is a material that I have been experimenting with lately, and seems to be something that I enjoy using. When I first got my hands on some, I had no idea where to start, but only knew that I wanted to incorporate features of nature into my final sculpture. So, to practice this, I sculpted a clay rose, a leaf and a circular tile with a bare tree. By doing this, I got a feel for the clay and how i can manipulate it in certain ways.
The tile and leaf were relatively easy to make, as they are mostly flat, and do not need immediate support. The rose on the other hand was very difficult to keep together, as the individual petals were all thin and delicate, and broke off from eachother very easily. I wasn't sure if it would make it into the kiln at all before it broke apart, but miraculously it survived. But, even now, the final solidified piece is very delicate and brittle, as the petals are now even thinner than they were before.
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| process shots of the rose in creation |
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| all 3 pieces after having been fired |
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| the rose after being fired - picture with my hand for size comparison |
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| my own image of a rose, for comparison to realism My piece is very unrealistic, inevitably, as the clay did not allow me to capture the delicate, paper thin nature of petals - had I tried to imitate this, the clay would have crumbled and cracked in my hand as it dried too quickly |
This was a learning curve, as I realised that clay could be much more difficult to use for my sculpture than I first expected. Originally, I had envisioned a girl created completely from clay, with clay hair and clay flowers/braids/leaves/vines/etc carved into her hair, whom I could then paint and glaze to create a beautiful and solid piece. A bit like a marble bust sculpture. See below.
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| Original VS a rough photoshop sketch of what I had envisioned Although I do not think it would be completely impossible to try and do this, I know that it would probably be very, very difficult, especially for a clay novice such as myself. |
I was considering using plaster and/or air dry clay to experiment with the idea without too many risks/too high cost.
I came across this image in my travels, which I thought was absolutely amazing and seemed impossible to do. The hair has a natural flow to it, which to me, is absolutely amazing. The girl is delicate and soft looking, and fully supports herself despite the fact the girl's neck is very thin. This is the kind of sculpture that I would love to be able to create myself. Delicate, soft and beautiful (very feminine). The artist is Edward Jonas.
After some research on the subject, I found this link to a tutorial on how to sculpt a head. It is not a professional tutorial, but it did give me ideas on how to advance from the level that I am already at.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-sculpt-a-head-out-of-clay/?ALLSTEPS
The woman in this tutorial uses a polystyrene mannequin head as a base for their sculpting, for which they use air-drying clay. The polystyrene base would give me a solid head to work on, and the air-drying clay would adhere to it naturally as it dried. This would eradicate my previous fear of air bubbles bursting in the kiln, as it would not need to go into a kiln at all.
Now, I am aware that air-drying clay is not a traditional, professional sculpting medium, but I do not desire to be a traditional artist, the whole idea of contemporary art is to break the traditional rules, and grow from them.
---------- So, now that I have a rough idea of what I want to achieve, I need to materialise my thought process in sketches, and work from my ideas in order to create a brief blueprint sketch for the sculpture I want to create. ~
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