practice head in clay

[feb]

Hi all, i've just started on a project from the book (Carving The head in the Classic European Tradition). The project starts by having you sculpture the bust from modeling clay first, to give a better feeling of how to carve it in wood. First you have to make an armiture out of wood to put the clay on. This is all new to me since i've never worked in clay and it is not as easy as it looks. Here's my progress so far, the milk carton is there to give you an idea of the size. Coments are welcome.

album 2 below
Feb

[Irishman]

Well Feb....you have a nice mass of clay there with some lines going through it - so far so good All kidding aside, your going to find this method helpful as I'm doing the same with the gargoyle I'm slowly picking at. Let us know if you find it helpful with your bust your carving. I'm using basic plastasine - what is it your using?
Patrick

[snickerbocker]

Feb,
I work my designs out in clay as well, not so much for Phil (he draws better than I do) but I find this very helpful, you can work out the problems before you take it to wood. It looks good so far.

[feb]

Patrick, I got ten pounds of plastilins #2 . vicki, your sure right about working out the problems. I'm not used to putting things on and the lines are for the nose mouth and eyes. I think i've spent more time on this then if i had carved it out of wood, it seems harder to get things in the right places and the head seems to small. I'll see it through but i'd rather see chips flying.

Feb

[Mottles]

Hi feb, looks like you have a very good start with the armature and clay build-up. I hope you will share as you go along.
Kathy

[feb]

Well i'm almost done and if you have the book you can see that i bacically done my own style head I don't think i want to do the carving anyway but i wanted the sculpture experience. As you can see about all thats left to do is the eyes and a little messing with the hair. This project was a lot of fun and if you can fit in another project you should give it a try.

Album 2 below
Feb

[Irishman]

Cliff, if you posted more pics of your clay sculture, I couldn't locate them in your album. There are the two pics you originally posted but I see no evidence of any new pics.
Patrick

[feb]

Patrick, sorry Imust of had one of thoses moments the pics are up now.

[K Karver]

Looks good Feb. You're using plastasine? Is that what most others use? I have not tried clay yet. Wondering what others do. I see from your work that you are applying globs of clay to the amature and then pushing it around. Why not make a large block and then carve it away with tools? Wouldn't that be more like carving? What do others do? Patrick? Vicki?

John K Karver

[feb]

John, this is the first one iv'e ever done I found it easier to add clay than to subtract it. The clay I used is plastilina it comes in 4 hardnesses I used #2. Others use polymer, clean clay, plastacine etc. I hope I qnswered your questions somewhat.

Feb