Commission sculpture of little boy reading Sunday Comics

I am working on a new commissioned sculpture for a library. A woman wanted to make a donation in memory of her husband, a life-long lover of libraries. Apparently this man learned to read in the 1930's by following along and listening to the radio announcer reading the Sunday comics. The sculpture will be about 16" long and feature a young boy reading newspaper comics to the radio laying on a braided rug. I will be taking a bit of artistic license, making the radio and newspaper a tad smaller than actual size for the sake of composition and story-telling.

am working on a new commissioned sculpture for a library. A woman wanted to make a donation in memory of her husband, a life-long lover of libraries. Apparently this man learned to read in the 1930's by following along and listening to the radio announcer reading the Sunday comics. The sculpture will be about 16" long and feature a young boy reading newspaper comics to the radio laying on a braided rug. I will be taking a bit of artistic license, making the radio and newspaper a tad smaller than actual size for the sake of composition and story-telling. - See more at: http://kiplingerpandy.com/blog/new-commission-sculpture.html#sthash.qJsEr8oG.dpuf

am working on a new commissioned sculpture for a library. A woman wanted to make a donation in memory of her husband, a life-long lover of libraries. Apparently this man learned to read in the 1930's by following along and listening to the radio announcer reading the Sunday comics. The sculpture will be about 16" long and feature a young boy reading newspaper comics to the radio laying on a braided rug. I will be taking a bit of artistic license, making the radio and newspaper a tad smaller than actual size for the sake of composition and story-telling. - See more at: http://kiplingerpandy.com/blog/new-commission-sculpture.html#sthash.qJsEr8oG.dpuf

am working on a new commissioned sculpture for a library. A woman wanted to make a donation in memory of her husband, a life-long lover of libraries. Apparently this man learned to read in the 1930's by following along and listening to the radio announcer reading the Sunday comics. The sculpture will be about 16" long and feature a young boy reading newspaper comics to the radio laying on a braided rug. I will be taking a bit of artistic license, making the radio and newspaper a tad smaller than actual size for the sake of composition and story-telling. - See more at: http://kiplingerpandy.com/blog/new-commission-sculpture.html#sthash.qJsEr8oG.dpuf

I'm behind in my blog so I had to combine posts for this sculpture work in progress. I started the project with this sketch and when approved I cut up my clay (Jmac Classic) and placed it on the warming mat to soften. Next I built the wire armature to scale.

After that I began cutting small strips of flattened clay and braiding the clay to make the oval rug.

Once the rug was completed I set it aside - I will go back and soften and refine later. For now I will sculpt the boy, newspaper and radio separately so I don't damage the clay rug.

First I add clay for the boy and block in all the forms. Once the basic anatomy, form and proportions are in place I will go back in and start refining the boy.

Next I will begin working on the newspaper and the radio.