Making changes and corrections to your wire armature

 Once the armature was very secure and those feet firmly attached to the board I began laying in some clay on the wire to create a simple skeleton framework. A guest to my studio was curious as to why I would go through the work and trouble to do this as it will all get covered up later. One major reason is that proper anatomy begins with the bones. If the bones are wrong, the rest will be wrong too. Placement of major bony landmarks helps the artist create the forms of the body and by starting with the basics, you have a firm foundation. It's also much easier to see and correct problems before you get too far along in the sculpt.
In this case, I found my problem rather quickly. By using some of the leg wire to firmly attach the armature to the base (and allow space for the clay ground upon which she stands) the leg armature was shortened. Not dramatically for physical accuracy, but as an artist I can take liberties to create the art as I wish, rather than is average. In this case, I want my figure to be a more balletic figure of 8.5 heads. By roughing in the bones I immediately detected that the legs were going to be shorter than my desired length.

A quick check with my proportional calipers confirmed my eye and I set about deciding how much I needed to lengthen my leg wire. I decided that the best place to add wire is to the femur, as the upper leg has more muscle and fat. So I cut the wire at the upper part of the leg and raised the torso bolt up the support pole to create a gap where I cut the wires. I now had lower legs attached to the board and the rest of the armature hovering above the lower legs.

Then I took a smaller gage aluminum wire and cut it longer than the gap separating the legs. With floral tape, I secured the new wire to the armature and then wrapped with fine gage copper wire to firmly secure to existing armature wire.

Once the wire was wrapped, I mixed a two part epoxy putty and covered the femur - once cured the new armature area is stronger than the original - the lengthened leg addition is now exactly what I want and the armature has been altered to meet the needs of this particular sculpt.
Remember - you can create your own armatures or make changes to store-bought armatures at any time to suit your style and tastes.
(Oh - and if you are wondering about the toothpick - that is marking the Suprasternal notch - another useful landmark....)

Sculpting Loss - off to moldmaker

Been crazy busy - lots of illustration work, daughter graduating and folks visiting!
I finished up sculpting the emotion of 'loss' and got her to the moldmaker. It was an experiment in sculpting water-based clay over armature for bronze. I really enjoy sculpting in waterclay - but with the extended time that took, it dried out several times, which is quite problematic.

Also, there was some cracking in thinner areas that will all have to be fixed each and every time in wax.....so that will be a chore.

So, if I do waterclay again, it will need to be done on a faster time schedule to keep those problems at bay.

 The photos are quite awful, but I didn't have time to get better ones.Currently the sculpt is now at the mold-makers so we can get the first wax poured and off to the foundry.
15" tall x 4" wide x 15" long.

This sculpture represents the emotion of loss and pain. The base is the shadow of the woman - depicting the feeling of despair stretching ahead of us, darkening our path. The small hole in the base is her heart...

Building up the form of the figure

I'm continuing to build up the forms in this water-based clay sculpture that is based off of my tiny maquette, "Loss". I cut off the arms and removed the wire armature as they were drying out too quickly - that then started to place the arm shapes back into place with toothpicks to bolster them until the clay firms up a bit. 

The clay is old and isn't the best to work with. Seems like I buy clay - then another deadline hits and I store it too long - and it loosed the placsticity a bit. Nevertheless, I will continue to refine the sculpture and add the hands next. On a different note, I've been accepted to the Loveland Sculpture Invitational again this year and will be working hard to have new works for the show in August!

Metal chasing Harriet Tubman and Waiting on #9

Busy week preparing for the Loveland Sculpture Invitational next week. There were some glitches in getting the two Ascensions ready - but I finally picked them up from Art Castings yesterday and they're beautiful. The bronzes for Harriet Tubman- Triumph and Waiting on the #9 were completed by Madd Castings and Bob Page did a fabulous job chasing them both quickly. Thanks, too, to Tessa Derbin for some great customer service in moldmaking and wax pouring. Both those pieces are now at patina specialist Dale Cisek's and should be completed on Monday and ready to go back to the Base Shop for the final basing.

 

The page-turner - maquette (clay sketch)

I created a new maquette, or clay sketch, today. This little bust has been quickly fleshed out in Jmac Classic Clay and measures about 6" from top of head to bent elbow.

The general inspiration was my daughter, a confirmed bookworm and talented writer. She often looses herself for hours at a time in her books, sometimes absently fiddling with her necklace while absorbed in the story.

The sketch is a quick gesture and I'm in love with pose already. I'll refine this a tad more just because I really want to - I may even take the sketch to bronze in this state before working on it again in a larger size for a more finished version.

The working title for this new sculpture is "The page-turner".

Suit up!

I had loads of  fun sculpting her and even more reaction to her as a nude figure......but I always wanted to do something more with her. So this week I had a ball sculpting a nice swimsuit for her and I think this look 'suits' her very well ;-)

Since this piece was a finished fired ceramic sculpt I opted to created her clothes using an artist's two-part epoxy, Aves Apoxie Sculpt.

You simply knead together equal parts of the epoxy until well mixed. I dampened the ceramic a little before applying the epoxy and sculpting it onto the figure. There is a window of time (1-2 hours) where the epoxy is workable and it gradually becomes stiffer. When it was stiffened up to the point of being quite firm, I pressed textured cloth onto the surface to give it a texture similar to the ceramic.

Once the epoxy is cured (24 hours) I was able to patina it in the same manner as the original sculpt so it looks like the suit has always been there.
This was on my to-do list for quite some time but as I rather liked the nude sculpt and had received a good response from her as is, I was concerned about ruining, rather than improving the piece.

I must say, however, that I'm very pleased with the outcome and I plan on keeping this in mind for other projects!