New Patina for Harriet Tubman Bronze Bust

I absolutely love the new patina on my portrait bust bronze "Fierce, the Triumph of Harriet Tubman"! Simplicity is my new mantra. The simplicity of the Chinese Brown patina is warm and human and I'm thrilled with the results.

The act of patination of bronze is so very different from my patina of transparent glazes on fired ceramic. I found that what glowed with beauty and subtle depth through glazing on my clay work didn't always translate the same when hot patina was applied to bronze. The color and nuances in hot patina are completely different. So rather than try to emulate my glazes on ceramic, I decided to work in more traditional bronze patinas and have learned that these choices are indeed, the more subtle approach that I love and allow the beauty of the bronze and the tooling of the the sculpture to shine.

Every day is a new lesson in sculpting and how every component impacts the piece, from the size of the sculpt to the choice of clay for expressiveness to the attitude of the subject, the patina that colors it, down to the base that supports it.... all these decisions are so important to the beauty and balance and statement of the final art.

Harriet Tubman, Conductor of the Underground Railroad is being honored in 2013 - the 100th anniversary of the death on an American hero.

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...

Refining the emotion of Loss

 Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Haven't been able to post as regularly as I'd like. So - back to the sculpt of "Loss". I did some extra work and ultimately wasn't needed and wasn't diligent enough of photo. For instance I fully sculpted both ears - which are completely covered by the blowing hair. But sometimes you change direction with work and the ears may have shown - at the very least they are a form that takes up space under the hair, so their presence is still felt.

I also sculpted the hands and arms several times - trying to get just the right pose. The tendrils of blowing hair are tricky - casting shadows upon the face, which is fine with me, however may be a problem in casting in bronze - I'll be checking with the foundry. The costs of casting increase dramatically with extra work, so it's a delicate balance.

You'll see in the full length images that she is standing on a long base, which is her shadow. This is how the emotion of loss feels to me - engulfing and swallowing (shown by the hair and dress swirling about her) with nothing but darkness ahead - represented by the long shadow.

The shadow has a hole it in - the feeling of a hole in your heart.

Now that the forms are in place and proportions set  I will take some time to refine the entire piece and then take some photos with better lighting.

15" high by 16" long in waterbased clay.

Sculpting emotion of Loss continued

 I've been inundated with publishing deadlines, so haven't had much time for sculpting. I've finished with blocking in the forms and establishing the figure. Before I go too much further, I need to determine the flow of the hair and dress.

When I work on a sculpt, it is very important to me that all the parts work in agreement. In my tiny maquette of this, the dress was fairly still and the hair was blowing away from the face, however as I work on this I'm leaning more towards the hair and dress blowing forward and whipping around and past her face. This will cast some shadows and obscure her face a bit however I think the effect will be one of loneliness and a feeling of being enveloped and overwhelmed - which, to me, is how loss feels.

So - I will refine her forms and her face before putting on the dress and hair, but this gives me a better idea of things. Next I will cut off the hair, dress and arms. The hands are next on the agenda and will be difficult to do. Once I've finished the arms and hands and re-attached, it will be time to sculpt the hair, dress and sandals - the zen icing on the cake in terms of working and I'm really looking forward to that part. I'm sure I'll be playing a lot of quiet cello music on my Pandora when getting to those nuances - the mood must all match...

CT3 Water-based clay over a wire armature to be made into bronze.

Harriet Tubman Bronze Available for Purchase

2013 ~ the year of Harriet Tubman, honoring an American Hero.

"Fierce - The Triumph of Harriet Tubman" Life-sized bust of Harriet Tubman cast in lost-wax bronze mounted on a black marble base.

You can see the creation of the original ceramic portrait sculpture of Harriet Tubman on my website.

The lost-wax life-sized bronze is now available for purchase. This is a small edition of 9 and the first one has already been sold to a private collector in Kansas.

$2750 (shipping $35 - please contact for shipping quote to countries outside of U.S.)

Purchase safely with Paypal, credit card placed over the phone, money order or check. Payment plans are available, please contact me for information.

I carefully selected an earthy and heavily grogged stoneware clay for this sculpture. The rugged body of this clay, with it's gritty aggreates and the expressive tooling of the clay combine to give a heaviness and world-weary feel to her face.


************************

People often wonder where inspiration for art comes from. In this particular instance, I was reading two books simultaneously, as I often do. The books were unrelated and not historical, however on the day that I was reading them, they both made a reference to Harriet Tubman - the Conductor of the Underground Railroad. The coincidence provoked a distant memory of studying about her in school and renewed my curiosity about her.

This led to the reading of several biographies of Harriet, where I learned of her immense strength, courage and business acumen. She was a tiny but tremendously strong woman who suffered a terrible blow to the head in her youth while protecting a fellow slave from an overseer. This injury left a scar on her forehead and life-long seizures that renered her unconscious at times. In her later years she went on to campaign for women's suffrage and created a home for the aged.

After reading all I could about this amazing woman, I took time to contemplate her character and then endeavored to sculpt a bust of Harriet Tubman that embodied her ferocious soul - defiantly rising above the restraints set upon her. As this was such a personal journey for me, the original fired clay portrait will not be sold and will remain in my studio with me.

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!

Beginning a new figure sculpture - "Loss"

Taking a break from the ecorche piece and trying something a bit different. I am sculpting from a tiny, quick maquette that I made a couple of months ago depicting the emotion of "loss". The was before the indescribable day of Sandy Hook....but since then this sculpt has prayed on my mind. So I decided to table my work for the moment to give some attention to this.

Usually I work in either water based clay for firing or oil-based clay for mold-making and then bronze. But for this piece, I'm working with a metal armature like I would with oil-based clay, but I'm sculpting with water-based clay instead. I just really love the feel of waterbased clay and wanted to give this a go.

The tiny sketch is a oil-based clay and the enlargement that I started is a metal armature with water-based clay on it. It can't be fired -as you can't dry and fire waterbased clay with a metal armature in it. In fact, I really can't let it dry out at all, because the clay with shrink and crack and become terribly brittle. What I plan to do is have the mold-maker take a mold directly from the leather-hard clay before it dries. Then cast in bronze.


I've  not done this before - my bust of Harriet Tubman was a fired clay piece, so not fragile when making the mold. But it's good to experiment.

"Loss" as I'm doing her now stands about 15" tall and has a long shadow being cast before her - symbolic of the darkness that she's feeling. I've blocked in some of the basic forms and shapes of the anatomy and look forward to beginning the refining stage next.

Wax chasing Harriet Tubman for bronze bust

Publishing deadlines have delayed my sculpture a bit and I've fallen behind. I have two waxes of "Fierce - the triumph of Harriet Tubman" ready to be chased and taken to the foundry that I need to complete.  Each and every bronze goes through a lengthy process. The sculpting of the original is only the beginning. After a multi-piece piece mold of the original is made a rotational, hollow cast of wax is made. This wax will likely have seams from where the mold rubber is joined as well as bubbles and other imperfections. Whatever your wax shows will also be shown on your bronze casting - so care must be taken to make the wax casting impeccable. 

Now that I've chased one wax, it's time to chase the second one and then run them both down to the foundry. There are several foundries that I use and for this particular bronze, I'll be using Madd Castings.

Ecorche - back muscles

 

Today I'm layering in the muscles of the back in this ecorche study. I'm following the gain of the muscle fibers as I place the clay- emphasizing the shape, form and function of the muscle.  Once I've built up the form of the muscle, I'll go back and refine it a bit. Time-consuming but effective way to build the figure.
I'm using Jmac Classic clay in medium and working 1/3 life size.

 

 

Ecorche - anatomy study of muscles in clay

 I'm continuing with my self-study, refresher of anatomy. This 1/2 life sized sculpture is being created by layering on the clay as muscles. As I work on the piece, I'm considering the role of the muscle - how round or flat is it? What is the function of the muscle and how does it effect the surface shapes when flexed?

Yes, this is a tedious exercise - and well worth every minute. It's so tempting to stop and go to surface forms, but that would defeat the purpose. Forcing yourself to really place the muscle, with it's origins and insertions, leads to greater understanding of the body....and understanding the body frees you to sculpt with confidence.


Jmac classic clay medium.

Ecorche' - Sculpting the muscles of the face

écor·ché

ey-kawr-shey  - noun

an anatomical model of part or all of the human body with the skin removed, to allow study of the underlying musculature.

******** 

 Anatomy....If you plan on sculpting the human figure then make no bones about it (....*groan*...pun intended ;-) you really need to know and understand anatomy.

It's a good idea to to try your hand at sculpting individual muscles in order to truly gain an understanding of what is happening under the skin. This exercise pays huge dividends when you sculpt because as you make the forms, you'll begin to understand how these bones, muscles and tendons give life, emotion and expression to your art.

This will infuse your work with greater authority and sculpting from life, or your imagination will become easier.

You can take workshops or classes if you have the time and availability, but if that isn't feasible, roll up your sleeves and get to work on your own.

Some books that I find useful for anatomy:

The Human Figure (David K. Rubins)
Classic Human Anatomy* (Valerie Winslow)
Anatomy for the Artist (Sarah Simblet)

*I especially like how this book is broken down and the phonetic help.

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.

Taking family time off...

My mother-in-law passed away suddenly - so I am taking some time off for my family. When I come back into my studio - I will be sculpting again and posting regularly. I hope you will check back soon.