Figurative Modelling – Page 2

On the 14th of November, I had my second session of Figurative Modelling, for the whole day, I and my class were sculpting heads, first, we started with taking terracotta clay and building a circular wall to act as a base, then I started building up layers of clay, working my way up the head.

Once I built my way up to the chin I took a small piece of clay to act as support once the chin was in place, then I started building more upward to the face, for the nose I tore up small pieces of clay that helped form the shape.

(Note: During the process, we were encouraged not to make the surface of our heads too smooth as it would increase our chances of them collapsing)

While making my way to the top of the head (like what I did with the nose) I took small pieces of clay and started building my way up.

Once I sculpted the eyes, ears, lips and other facial features, I was finished and satisfied

(Note: the reason why I didn’t fill the head all the way to the top was both because there was a risk of it collapsing and also because I liked the way it looked).

On the 12th of November, I had my first class on figurative modelling, To prepare for our induction each of us was tasked in printing out an image of a figurative model art piece that interested us, For me, I chose the work of Michael Flynn.

Introduction

In the opening presentation, we were introduced to multiple figurative model artists such as Harry Alley, Christina Cordova, etc, next, we were told to analyze the art pieces by artists we chose using the three identities such as A particular way of thinking about the ideas, a particular way of finding relationships between ceramics and a particular way of presenting outcomes such as curation, installation or photography.

Sculpting exercises

For our first exercise of the day, we were given pieces of raku clay and use it to create our own multiple sculptures of the body that helped find the thinking, finding and presenting of sculpture work. These included parts of the body, the surface of the human skin and textures.

Hand Stitch Part I

For the first half of the afternoon, we made a start on making our fabric plaster hands, For this week we had to trace our arms (only a centimeter wider) on the fabric, place a few pins to secure it in place, then I proceeded to sew around the tracings, once it was sewn, I then cut the arm out.

Life Drawing

For the final exercise of the day, we had a few life drawing exercises, This included 10 of 10-second drawings (these included the core lines, gravity, and notation of the body), 10 of 20-second drawings, (these included core lines, the undulation of soft flesh, and punctuation of what it feels like to be in the body) 5 of 1 minute drawings (these included core lines, softness and a different area of focus) and finally two five minute drawings (for each drawing, I had to focus on different areas of the body and to carefully consider the relationship between skeletal structure and skin qualities that surround it).

A few of my sketches:

Five Minutes 20 Seconds