Study Boards Assignment/Notes Board 1: Direct clay onto board. This one got pretty funky, and I pulled the ripcord and bailed on it. Either it was because this was my first attempt, applying the clay and having the proportions grow, or some combination of both that created the perfect storm. All good. First Steps. Board 2 : Laying down Clay First This was great because it was more familiar to figure drawing and allowed me to really figure out the proportions of the figure before carving away and adding clay. I think these boards are probably a bit small. I may need to work larger so I don't feel cramped. Board 3 : David's Lips I picked up a set of cast facial features of David, and started with the lips. It's decent, but I kinda rushed it and ignored doing some direct measuring. Just eyeballed it. Overall: I definitely approached these as sketchbook pieces, and made enough panels that I have a bunch on hand when needed. I definitely see the benefit of having them to help work through some skill building without getting too precious

Build Up Sculpture #2 : Part 2 I took my time on this one, focusing on adding snakes of clay in flow with the anatomy to build the sculpture up more evenly and proportionally. The stability of the stand made more of a difference than what I thought it would. Definitely improvement from the 1st build up sculpture, but still a long way from great. I'm looking forward to the Bas Relief assignment and seeing how that helps.

Sculpture Build Up #2 - Part 1: Gesture and Primary Forms Addressing Notes from V.1 - Sculpting thin through the torso, and even throughout. I also build the stand correctly this time too. I'll be moving on to the secondary forms later tonight, and will update this post with pics when I've got 'em.

Build Up Sculpture : Part 2 Starting off, I was sculpting from a position of weakness because I didn't build the stand correctly. Total Brain fart. I used thick armature wire instead of threaded rod for the horizontal bar. This allowed my figure to sag. Yikes! To sorta solve this, I added the wood dowel. On the plus side, it kinda made the pose a little bit more dramatic. I've also noticed that the pictures I'm taking don't always look like what I'm seeing with my eyes. Through the lens of the camera, my figure looks thicker and bulkier. Combination of Iphone lens AMD my sculpture being a bit to thick and saggy? Probably more human error than not. Moving forward, I'm planning on sculpting a second piece for future lessons rather than continue to work on this one. More practice = better sculptures. Any extra thoughts?

Sculpture Build Up : Part 1 - Sculpting Thin Here's the armature at around 11 inches, (1" = 1 Cranial Unit) and the start of my build up in clay. My main goals were to get the armature built up and put on a stand, find the gesture of the pose, and add clay for the primary forms. I'll add more pictures as I finish out the primary forms and move on to the secondary forms in the next lesson.

Gesture study from Master Study: Extra Credit #2. Another pose from the Morpho : Anatomy for Artsits book. It's anyone's guess what's going on with that left foot, so I sculpted it raised off the ground. This is my last Gesture study from a Master Study. I only made 3, but I really enjoyed this assignment, and will continue to use it to practice and get better.

Gesture study from Master study: Extra Credit. I enjoy the graphic paintings of J.C. Layendecker because they look like they've been carved out of paint rather than brushed on, and I was wondering how that would translate with this assignment. What I found is that the proportions and poses, while based on real models, tend to be heavily stylized, making it a little bit difficult to push the armature into the same pose without flattening it. Overall, not bad. I probably could have picked something a bit more dynamic, but this Jester has always been one of my favorites, and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to drop the Jester Gesture pun. Ugh. Dad jokes. So awesome.

Gesture Master Study #1. I used a drawing from Morpho: Anatomy for Artists by Michel Lauicella as my reference. Based on the pose I chose, I figured I'd need a support stand, even for a 6" figure, so that was fun to make. Overall, pretty fun, but hard to wrap my head around it completely when looking at the pose from all angles.

Gesture Study #3. I focused on the mass and weight of this pose because there's a lot of interesting things going on in the back and left art/shoulder area. I made a mistake in the armature construction, so the spine was 1/4" too short. Due to that, the rib cage and pelvis are closer together than what the model's proportions are, making the sculpture a little more squat. That said, since he's a bodybuilder, it kinda works and doesn't ruin the work. Any other notes are welcome.

Gesture Study #2. Putting aside my poor photography skills, this study was overall decent. I think there might be room to push the rib cage on the left side so that it really offsets from the pelvis. I found that the right leg kept sagging/bending at the knee, so that leg feels a little off from the pose reference as well. Side note: The Sculpey I found for the $5 challenge is Super Soft/gummy, and it feels like it doesn't bake completely... I can definitely see why it was free. Still, I"m happy to use it for gesture sculpts because it frees me up from getting too precious with things.

Gesture study #1. For this assignment, I built 3 armatures at 3/4" = 1 Cranial unit which yielded 9" tall armatures. The material I worked in was white Sculpey. I chose this pose because it was the hardest one for my brain to wrap itself around. Something about the relationship of the head, torso, hips and feet were challenging. Overall, I think I came pretty close to capturing and pushing the gesture of the pose, properly identifying a center line, and sort of implying the squash and stretch sides of the torso. I think I'll add a more permanent support for this sculpture too.

Front and Back view of my hand armature. I went for the larger, 2 cranial unit size so I could just focus on the forearm and hand. The loop at the base holding it up can be straightened out to become an upper arm if needed.

Adjustable Armature. The concept here is something akin to a runner crossing the finishing line. If I wanted to exaggerate it a bit more, I think the arms could get outstretched behind the body. Or maybe just one arm is a little further than the other to create more visual interest. Just a thought.

My 3 armatures. All are 1" = 1 unit. The packaging for the wire I used says it is 16mm or .062 in. I really like this system because it keeps the guess work out of building armatures and is really quick to make once you get it down. Looking forward to throwing some clay on these.

I retook some photos of my torso sculpture from the $5 sculpture Challenge since a lot of the comments about the sculptures was about photographing them in a nice, consistent environment.

$5 dollar assignment. I used some old Sculpey that my buddy gave me for helping him move. It looks pretty old, but it's super smooth. I kinda imagine it's like trying to sculpt with Bree Cheese. As for a sculpting tool, I used a binder clip. The height of this sculpture is 4inches tall. There's some parts in the anatomy where I had trouble seeing vs translating - Shoulders and clavicle mostly, but some of that might be on the size of the sculpture and the odd tool I was trying to use to sculpt with. Regardless, I think this is something that will get solved by studying more anatomy while simultaneously sculpting... However, any advice anyone has is greatly appreciated.