Sculpture: First

(October 2000)
Many people know that I've been taking a sculpture coarse for the last few years. Actually I think I'm starting the 6th year. Anyway I've been taking a sculpture coarse through the Toronto District School Boards continuing education general interest program for the last few years. Few people have seen what I've done or know much about the coarse and what I get to create there.

So I thought I'd post a few pictures of different "Works" I've done over the years and describe the different processes involved. I also hope to show progress in my abilities. I think I've improved quite a bit and I'm quite happy with a lot of what I've done.

So with this entry I'm going to start at the beginning and describe the first piece I worked on.

So the first time I took the course was Fall 2000. I'd been wanting to take an art course for a long time, and sculpture sounded very interesting. Although I had done some in my high school art class, I'd never worked with a live model.

The first class was very intimidating. I had no idea what I was doing. All the teacher said at first was, here's a stand, here's an armature, here's the clay. Then a women got up on the small round stage in the middle of the room, drops her robe, and we all start squishing clay on to our armatures. A very odd position to be in for a person who had not been around many/any naked people up to this point in their life.

A little ways into the class the teacher comes out and gives a little more instruction. When I think back I'm surprised how literally I took the teachers instructions. Basically he said, concentrate on the body, don't worry about the limbs, they will come with time. Work on the forms of the body, see how surfaces flow, try to reproduce the volumes. So I concentrated on the body.

The pictures are of the final stage I reached with this sculpture. As you can see it has no arms or legs and only a rudimentary head that's more then a little too small. Also for a sculpture of a woman it has surprising lack of breast. This is because the teacher pointed out, the breast sit on top of the body, don't put them on until the underlying structure is correct.

It took three, three hour classes to get to this point. I'm a bit faster now. I can usually get the breast on by the second class.

I don't know why, but I had no thoughts of wanting a piece to take home with me. After taking these pictures I took all the clay off the armature and returned it to the clay bins. I look at new comers to the class now and most rush to try and get all the details in and want to cast their first piece. I find your skill increases quickly at first in these classes. Saving your first piece is ultimately a discouraging process. It takes a lot of time, and is a very mechanical process. I'm very glad I spent the time to learn the art before spending the time needed to cast a piece. But I'll discuss that process at another time.

This piece of mine wasn't worth keeping, but there was a lot of learning in it. Taking a few pictures of it was the best way of preserving it.

I thought I wasn't going to write so much.