Clay head (Project 1) and Plaster sculpture (Project 2)

Project 1

Sculpting the clay head was more fun than I had imagined. My first (real) and last clay experiences lay way back in kindergarden and primary school days and since then I never got the chance to do it again, so I wasn't too excited.
My biggest problem was to create a sculpture that is really 3-D and not just a front with a big nose coming out of it... Once the sculpture had a bigger back of the head it looked way more realistic.



I'm not sure whether touching Marcel's face was a big help to start with, in the end I felt, I couldn't really give the sculpture Marcel's features. Nevertheless I like the outcome of it. Before I put the hair on, it looked a lot like a beautiful African woman from the front and rather like Marcel from the profile. Weird, but nice.



Project 2

Plastercarving is a mess.

I like the assignment of abstracting a human figure - that is, even if I tried to create a naturalistic human figure it would end up kinda abstracted... Unfornately when I was in midst of the process one of the legs of the sculpture broke off so by now my sculpture is far from its initial sketch or the clay model.















So what have I learned about the material plaster?

• it's messy
  
• it's fragile
  
• and before long half of it is already carved away and you wonder why you didn't plan it any better
  

... as you can tell I preferred the first project. Anyway, I've continued the carving at home and so I've turned it into something completely different (an arm turned into a head and a leg into an arm) and now I'm okay with it.

Oil based clay work

I know it's incredible, or better to say unbeliveble, but this "sculpture" is created about Natela. Although it doesn't seems like her. Thank God - Natela is much nicer and she's living, my 'sculpture' is just not. It has nothing to with Natela - unfortunately. :-) But this was my very first try to do something, I'm not brave enough to say sculpt with oil based clay. But -after the first shock - it was real fun to work with this stuff. Perhaps it's sounds strange, but I really liked to touch this clay, and worked with it, although I still don't know how to sculpt a "head" which is similar to the original living one. Maybe I'm just not talented enough, or maybe it wasn't enough time to have practice. But anyway, it was funny and I enjoyed it.

Susan's first sculpture

We were worked with oil based clay. I was very excited, because I have never made a sculpture before. Ok, we used clay in kindergarten and primary school too, but that was different. It was fun at the beginning, my partner was Oksana. However, it was difficult as well. I enjoyed to make a head-shape figure, but the part of the face were more difficult. My main promblem was that when Paula checked my sculpture, the head of it fell down. Of course she repaired it, but this happened again and again...

Well, I am not really satisfied with my work, but nice try at first. Unfortunatly, this is not similar to Oksana's face.

Emese in a creative way :)

There are no doubts that this task was difficult. Like for many of our classmates it was the first time for me to work with clay, (except the pre-school stuff like snails and burgers). We had to form our partner's head so it can be recognizable. When we started study art history I couldn't understand what is so 'cool' about artists... since everyone can paint and sculpture! Well, since this class I rethought this whole thing, and Michelangelo was pretty cool after all. I guess he knew something. :)

First we started the work on our own to see our skills, but later Ms. Brett showed us many useful and cool stuff. She showed how to make eyes so they don't look all weird and mouth so it can be personal and nice. The hardest part was how not to make the sculpture into a cube.
By the end of the class my sculpture looked like this. I think i did a pretty good job for first try but I hope my skill will improve a lot over the semester.

And this is my parter, Emese with her clay-twin.

Posted by: Bianka Kovacs

Anna`s sculptures

First Ever Experience...

This lesson provides me with a great first-hand experience which i will never forget. For it was not only fun and enjoyable, it does give me more perspective and understanding - not forgetting it's challenges - of sculpturing. This makes me appreciate and admire more such refine and gifted artists such as Michelangelo, whose perfection in sculpturing is beyond greatness.

Proven to be an average in drawing skills as well, it says a lot on the result that are shown on my sculpturing. However, i obliged not to let myself being turned down by my weakness, and let my hands, and eyes do the work. I actually did re-do the figure time and time again, and it actually gets better and better (imagine if i keep doing it 1000 times) ...so again, practice makes perfect. So, the end result didn't turned out to be what suppose to be the face of my partner (Elinor)....but then again, it's my first attempt. And i'm more than happy if it's anyone face.

Cheers!

- Fathir -

My first sculpture

Todays task was to form the head (including the shoulders) out of the piece of raw clay. Sounds hard...and it was!

My partner was Anna and we had a fun time forming eachot

hers head.

This is Annas head, frontal view. The knowlede i gained in the drawing class was really helpfull. About the proportions of the human face. 

All in all i must say that it was a nive experience to see something geting into human shapes under my fingers.

I had i hard time though because it was not easy to give the clay a smoth form.

Franziska Koch

Emese is proud

Bia's head

Okay, You'll say I'm eager because I have already downloaded the photo from my cell and uploaded on my laptop, and now on this page. And you can tap your shoulders, and grim bacuse you're right. That was the first time ever I used some sticky, oily or clay stuff forming a head, ears and nostrals :) and I'm Proud

I hated though that she wasn't only the model but a sculptor as well.

I'm totally happy with what I have done. I see the ressambles between Bianca and my sculpture, so when we are going to make FULL BODY sculptures, and mine turns out great, I might discuss with god about a job opening.

The actual work, that I remember:

First the back of the head was absolutely mising, than I added some clay, the shape of the head was the easiest for me, but the neck issue, which seemed to occur in everybody's work, was an issue for me too. Now you see the very nice curve, which make it very feminine for me. I'm over the top with the mouth, and the nose. The eyes, I didn't want to put them in, and I think when I gradually did, I should have not done it.
I haven't really finish the hair, but I don't recieve this as a drowback, a negative effect on the overall work.