Bald is beautiful...well it needs to be for a successful sculpt

 I'm back in the studio and the weather is cooling down here in northern Colorado. That means more heating of the clay in order to work ;-)

Picked up where I left off in enlarging "A Good Read" from my original small maquette. It's starting to take shape now and soon will start coming together nicely. It's so tempting to get in there an caress the features of the face but to do so now would be counter-productive. It's like dessert - you really should save the caress for last.

And hair ;-) Hair adds so much to a sculpture but if you cheat and put hair on too soon you can lull yourself into thinking that the work is stronger than it is. The sculpture should really look good without the lovely decorations or hair or clothes. If it looks good before these additions, the work will be even better after. So all you sculptors out there - suffer through the ugly phases - leave them bare until you really work out forms - it's worth the pain in the long run.

Next I'll be working on making hand armatures and adding the hands before moving forward with any more mass or detail to the head or body.
 This is sculpted at 1/2 life size using Jmac Classic clay firm and medium.

Correcting facial proportions in clay

 I'm back in my studio now and working on "A Good Read". Still blocking in the basic musculature and forms. While working, I could see that the lips were too close to the nose, giving too much chin to the face. So I have shown how to fix this problem.

First I took my sharp metal shaper and cut upwards towards the nose to cut the lips off. Then I removed the lips. Next I replaced the lips onto the sculpt only slightly lower.

After the lips are in place, I rolled out a small coil of clay and placed it above the upper lip to fill in the crack. Then I continued sculpting and adding more forms to the clay.

You can see that everything is very rough and that I am not concentrating on any one area. As I work on the piece I'm constantly moving around the and working front, back, side and adding clay as I go to keep the piece moving along.

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".