[Coffeeman]

Foundwood....

I've really enjoyed this piece from the get go and feel for your current frustration, but we learn from experience.

This will be a very special piece, "one-of-kind-er" so I hope you continue to move forward with another wood selection and give her another go at it, sounds as though your are, keep us posted and looking forward to seeing the final picture. Bill

[foundwood]

Coffeeman,
I have thought about the process long and hard, and eventually realized that I need to back up a little bit and sculpt out of clay again. Here's why: I faltered when moving from the roughed-out bust to the beginning stages of the limb arrangement that would define the facial features.

I thought I had a good grasp of the first plaster mock-up, but for some inexplicable reason, I chose to go in a different direction when I started laying out my lines. I guess I just got too excited after doing all of the grunt work for two days.

The biggest life lesson re-learned from this attempt: Plan the work, and work the plan. If you get to a point where you cannot understand what to do next, then stop and study your options. Break it down.

My father relocated our family 13 times in twelve years as I was growing up. I asked him one day: "Why do we always have to move, and everyone else seems to stay in one place?" He replied with an analogy that would puzzle me into my adult years. "If you don't know where you're going, then any road will take you there." Well, I eventually ended up in business with the old man, and we were having a rather heated exchange about whatever hot topic ruled the day, and he let the old father-ism fly again.

I couldn't hold back any longer, and I fired back with; "no where. If you don't know where you are going, then any road will take you there. The answer lies in the question, Dad. I don't want to just take any direction without an idea of where it will lead." I thought I had one of my life's great riddles figured out.

Until he replied, "but son, my point has always been that taking no direction and sitting still leads to being stalled right where we are. We already got this far by taking a first step. Now all we need to do is keep moving. There are many roads out there, and some of them will be paved by us. You look out there and see nothing, no where. I see endless paths to countless possibilities."

Time to take another step.

[Eleanor]

Well, Dr Moreau will be getting one less tenant it seems. A class I used to go to for sculpture had a word for an unintentionally ugly sculpted face , "mook" which I think was short for "moo cow". This could also be used as a verb: one of our group sculpted Marilyn Monroe but....somehow it came out horribly ugly....and the verdict was that he had "mooked" .
As for following the maquette - I'm also a bit ambivalent about this. Sometimes it fells as tho you are just forcing your will on the wood and not listening to it if you just impose the original plan. On the other hand, heading off into the unknown can get you in a 3D mess. I like those countless possibilities to be realisable! Ah, back to the plasticine!