Sculpting the Bas Relief Tutorial Part 5

The sculpting demonstration tutorial by Lori Kiplinger Pandy continues with a push and pull of the clay forms.
I am continuing to build up the highest planes and the remove clay from the receeding areas. Throughout this process I turn the sculpture from side to side and stand on a step stool to view from above or squat down to look from below.

You must constantly be aware that this is not a painting, viewed simply from straight on, it is a sculpture and will be viewed from different angles.

After a period of working, I'll wet the clay a bit and use a home-made brush to crosshatch over the entire sculpt to knock down areas and blur some edges - this helps me to see how the forms are taking shape overall and to blend

the clay a bit.
Once the clay has had a chance to rest a bit, I'll step back and review the sculpture as a whole and evaluate it's progress before I proceed to working again on the sculpt.
You'll see that I started to rough in the owl in the background - it is imperative that you keep bringing each area up to the same amout of finish as the rest - having one area of scupt leap too far ahead of other areas causes distortion and usually results in having to rework large areas of your sculpture.

I will be visiting galleries for potential partners during the next week so it will be a little while before I post the next section of this tutorial.

In anticipation of my absence, I have sprayed the clay, double wrapped it in plastic and taken the entire board off the easel to lay it flat on a table. I don't want the moisture in the clay to migrate from the top due to gravity and cause uneven drying or warping, so placing it flat should keep it stable until I can return to work.