Reclining unfinished nude - ceramic clay

This was another 5 hour sculpt done in water-based clay. Sadly - it's the last one for the class. It's about 19" long and 10" wide. In this piece I worked her head "off sculpt" - which means that I cut her head off to hold upright in my hands to sculpt for a bit and then re-attached her head.

"Unfinished" because I'm experimenting with not sculpting 'everything'. Not sure how successful I was in not completing the arm and leg....what do you think?

I was more interested in the negative spaces and openings. I plan on making the base clay that she's lying on very light so that the dark forms and open spaces show up on the nude more.

Took a lot of liberties with this one. I had about 4 hours with the model, but her proportions were very short and rather chunky. At first I started to sculpt her as she was, was then I thought, why? After all, this isn't a commission. So about 3 hours of the sculpting process was capturing the woman before me (she had her hips raised on pillows and her head lower - both arms were up - with hands under her head), I decided to change things - so I lowered her hips to level, turned her head the opposite direction and put one of her arms down. It was too late at this point to give her much more in the way of length. If I were to do it over, I'd take even more liberty and really stretch her out a lot - I think it would please me more.

Anyway - she's currently drying and awaiting firing. Sorry for the photos - I just snapped a few quick shots and they aren't very good ones... (Chestnut water clay cone 6).

In the mean time - I'm happy to say that all my other sculpts fired beautifully. The one sad news was that one fell during the long drive home from Denver and broke her leg. A lot. I'm currently trying to repair it using epoxy compound. We'll see how it does.

Next will be my patina class in May! I'm looking forward to working with the patinas to see the different effects. They will also cover the repairs to the one sculpt with the broken leg. I'll make a post of her repair soon too.

5 hour Clay Portrait Study

Here we have a ceramic clay sculpture portrait study. I did this in one quick session of 2 1/2 hours then another 2 hours without the model at home. I didn't get good photos because I forgot to photo it at home and had to take a quick shot at the class while she was partially dry (which is why the clay is speckled).

As you can see, her strand of hair broke off in transport. She's also a bit flat in the back because I was worried that the clay had gotten too thick and I'm trying to be careful about the thickness of the clay for firing. So if she fires okay - I may be able to repair the strand of hair that broke off. Hope so anyway.....but it's all a learning experience!