Well..this's my first time to creat something abstract figure with plaster.
I had quite so much fun with this material. I drew some sketches before i started my best idea...which is a person who fold his/her hands above him/herself.
When I started to carve and rubbing down it..i realised that it's not very easy as i thought.. :/ It was difficult in the beginning 'cause it was wet..
Fortunately the plaser didn't breaks in my or other hands but when i wanted to fix it with glu..it started to cracking... :/
Finally what i can say i like my issue!:)

Wire – sculpture Elinors' pea-pod!

Although I made some wire- skeletons as a base for sculpture that was my first real wire sculpture.
Logically thinking, sculpting from a wire seems to me a bit like drawing, since in both the line it the main tool.
One line won't weight as a combination of lines which can bring value and heaviness to the sculpture/ drawing.
The idea of making a Pea-pod came to me when I thought about the lines, and what contain a lot of little lines in nature in order to create a 3D object. The pea-pod is acting like a leaf, which can be broken into thin lines.
In my Pea-pod I used 3 materials, thick green wire, thin golden wire, and thin brownish rope. The brown is the natural ground color the green is the pea-pod color itself and the golden is used lightly as the sparkle of the sun on the "living plant".
I like what I came out with, hope you too… :)

franzi working with plaster

the three weeks we were working with plaster were really hard for me...

first we had to draw sketches of an abstracted body part and later turn it into reality in the soft clay. that was hard i thought but it got worse..i .never worked with plaster before. the part of mixing the plaster and waiting for it to get hard was interesting, also that it got so warm while drying. but than we had to start carving it and turn it into the form we had drawn before! my bag full of dry plaster had a completely other shape than i would have needed one and it was harder to work with it than i thought! I would have loved to get some more help with choosing the tools and the carving. when i took the plaster home for th

e first time i didn't even dry up entirely so i couldn't work on it. the next week i took it home i sanded it and this was the first time i started to like the work on the raw plaster...it was nice to see that something smooth came out of the raw, wet plaster stuff! the next point were i would have loved to get some support was the moment i decided to hot-glue it on the wooden board. apparently i used to much but i never did it before so i didn`t knew how much glue i had to use...

all in all these weeks gave me some raff time and sometimes i wanted to give up on it but in the end i am happy with the outcome. 

this is a picture of the soft clay figure i made. i will attach the pictures of the painted plaster figure next week.

franzi koch

Abstract plaster female body!

It IS and abstract female body and NOT what it looks like!

explainin'

I'm confused about my updated photos. Should I post the wire works now? don't we have more time for that? Anyhow, I show now the final look of my plaster-sculpure......

Dare someone say it's not abstract!?

How I think of a face is kind like that: one smooth surface, which is soft, plain, smooth like on my work then some cracks, mounds and dales; darker, duller spots interrupting the unity. The paint brought out the cracks, imperfections on the smooth surface.
The pyramid shoulders supports this huge circular plate, which we always look much more and therefore sense as times bigger than the body below. I meant to exaggerate that.

Marcell and Hands : wire

Peasoup:
I don't know what to say about this one other than the ide came early and was pretty simple as wire art is new to us all I guess and I was pressed with time issues thanks to my devotion for my plaster sculpture. I made this rather quick but there are some things I'd like to change. I like my idea but I didn't like the fact that I was forced to make it so fast and simple.

Running woman

This is a picture of draft that i made before starting to build a sculpture, this is how it was supposed to look like. very simple and organic shapes. then i began building the clay sculpture which could help me to see some kind of "preview" of the future sculpture. and here is the picture of it.









and then i began making the sculpture from plaster, at first it look similar to the clay sculpture i made before. but sooner i realized that it looks better when i put her "on her legs". and now it was a figure not of a lying woman,but a running one. you can see her head, arms,blowing hair and legs in a form of a circle. i think it is usually used in cartoons, when smn is running away very fast. that's why i called her a Running Woman.

Revealing a praying figure out of a plaster bag

The second sculpturing assignment was totally new to me, using a new technique – carving!
I was using different materials before, including plaster for sculpturing, but had never carved out one.
The idea of finding the hidden figure inside the plaster bag was very hard for me, thinking all the time that I can't take back my steps, and if a piece was carved out, there is no way back, only improvisation.

Since the piece of plaster reminded me a praying figure form the first moment, I decided to try and revile the shape of one. The plan was simple and a bit abstract, and so is the result.
Although I left some place for imagination, and the figure is not realistic at all, I still added some recognizable things- as the head and the spinal.
I fell ok for the first time trying to carve a humane figure out of plaster, but at the same time looking forward for trying it again, since I'm not 100% satisfied with what I manage to come out with.
As a last step I colored the sculpture, and that the point where I started to like it. I gave it a bronze – greenish color, and it really made the whole difference!

elinor

Wire sculpture by Susan

I found the idea of wire sculpture very cool. I really enjoyed it! Unfortunately, Maya had the same idea: a tree. And when I wanted to make it different from Maya's sculpture, she had always the same idea. :)) (For example: I decided to make a cat under my tree, and she made one, too...) But finally, there are differences between our works. I figured out to make a swing, which is hanging from a branch. I put some leaves to the brances and some to the ground, as well. Unfortunately, I have a better idea now, for fixing the leaves to the branches, but my tree stayed at school and I cannot modify it.

Ready plastic sculpture (by Susan)

I finished my plastic sculpture. We had to polish our figure, then paint it. I did not really like my sculpture, when it was unpolished and white, but i like the final looks so much. With this colour, it looks like a real metal sculpture. I think, it would be a right place for this little stuff in a shelf, because it is decorative. If we will not have this task again in the future, I will make some similar sculpture at home during the summer holiday. It is true that it was not an easy job to carve the figure, but I am satisfied with my work.

Wire Atom by Bianka

This week our new task was to make a wire sculpture. For me this was a very new area of art. In my opinion art was only painting and sculpturing. Making these wire-sculptures seemed more fun!
First I was going to make a fruit bawl but Emese told me that I would have too much trouble with that so I passed on that idea.










Finally I decided to make something I would put in my living room.
I finished my sculpture and I'm proud of it... At the same time, I would never put it in my living room. :D
My sculpture is representing an atom with its nucleus. so i named it 'Atom'
:)))

The plans by Bianka

Emese posted the photos of my sculpture last week because I took the picture with her camera and couldnt get a chance to get in touch with her on the internet. (Thank you Emese for the posting.)
Well, here are my plans for my plaster sculpture that is almost done and getting dry in school.

This is supposed to be an abstract body of a woman with huge breasts. On the bottom there is her head, feet and one of her breasts. On the top there is the other breast , her belly and her bottom.

After making this plan and started the project on the plaster I realized how big mistake it was to do something with a huge hole in the middle. It is much easier to work with clay, obviously.
I had a lot of fun though.
Bianka

Marcell and Hands: plaster

Plaster Sculpture: Silverback and Hail too Spring
Surprisingly fun and easy. Not just because of the mixing of the plaster which my arm happily volunteered for. The factors were many and the feeling great. It had been a true pleasure to make sculptures. The fact that it had to be an human form bugged me since I got the "Hail too Spring" idea after just seeing the bucket of water then when seeing the plastic bags I thought of a sculpture "Silverback" since I knew the bag would get that stony massive form when balanced and dried on one plastic bag corner, making it round and very easy to work with. It finally turned out to become a deep bowing figure with a massive smooth back and of course a "arm" fell off as there was plastic bag wedged into the plaster from my attempt to balance it on one corner.

concept:

Marcell and Hands : sculpture

Sculpture: Bettina
The sculpturing turned out to be a bit of a hassle. I did get the proportions right but I was to delicate and wasting time looking at my never drying head o neck. The sculpture clay was easy to work with and fun since it is done fast and is plenty flexible. I swiftly found the forms but never the expression. I sat there for hours looking clueless twisting out a couple of lips, couple of failed attempts so I turned to pressing holes for eyes. Gave me a microscopic sensation of joy since we all know how to make two holes in something soft I decided to not over do my excitement for this project and after some time I got one eye in *text book style*. My problem was simply that I created a form which was not even done and handled it as if it was made of gold, stupidly I should just grow a set of balls and dig in and alter as much as needed.

*PICTURE* (Fransiska)

Stand Alone Complex: cyber ninja
After the agony of not even getting one detail right, not even able to capture a single essence of Bettina’s face I decided to cover it all up, good old childish destruction style. The game was over. I had failed to create a minor resembling sculpture of Bettina and I was too scared to even touch it instead of going nuts and getting a feel for it. There for I was destined to create a "Bettina Cyber Nin"... It had all the essential ninja gear: Mask, hood even a damn eye patch but no sight of Bettina anywhere...

...failure has a funny taste.

week 3, plaster

that was a great experience to work with plaster, i liked it sooo much)) but i would rather change the steps order of the work - first sketch and then make plaster to know exactly what figure u need to form, so it can suit your designed sculpture

it was hard for me to polish the sculpture, because plaster is very "sensitive" material, so every other movement made another scratch

the result i got in the end was a little bit different from that i drew in the beginning

week2 , modeling head
well it was the first time i worked with this material) it was a bit hard to sculpt different small details as nose and eyes, because the size of the sculpture itself was not that big; i think for the first experience i managed to sculpt face with features resembling a real person)))

First sculpture by Katinka:)

Hello everyone!
Wow..what can i say first of all?:)
You did a really great job!I like your sculptures (especially your photos because i didn't see them on the class) :P But anyway
It was my first sculpture made of oil based clay about Adél. I used some material to help myself..and survive..but unfortunatelly i beheaded my sculpture!:P Well..i try to do my best but i hope the next time will be better!:)

My first sculpture

This was not my first time of using plasticine, but this was new for me to make a figure of my neighbor’s head. As you see, this role played our Robert. At first, I took a great interest in trying myself in this new sphere of creative work. I tried hard, but by the end of the class I was so tired out that I couldn’t do it anymore, and I lost my passion I had before. But besides that I liked the work we did, it was interesting for me, though it was hard to make eyes and lips. I still have to work on them. But I liked the shapes of my figure’s jaws. It is not well-shown in the picture, but it really repeats Bob’s ones. And I’m sure I could do it better if I had enough time. Therefore, I think this work unfortunately is still unfinished.

Plaster scarving / wire project

Project 2

These are the final pics of my plaster figure after having spent the whole class today smoothening it. I've only left the hair pair rough so it sticks out from the rest and is not mistaken for a part of her breast.
I've decided to leave it white because I think this makes it look more pure. Actually we've been wondering (that much for group work..) wether she's dancing or crying, but I've decided it's a crying figure and to leave it white makes it look more sad.

What I'm a bit dissatisfied with is that I couldn't smoothen all the corners and inaccessible parts, but especially the part between her hair and shoulder is very hard to reach. Furthermore the figure is not completely stable, if you tap it, it starts to teeter...

What I do like about it, is the many shades it has because of the arms over the head and that exactly over the part where the eyes are (not that it really has sculpted eyes), falls a shadow - although that is a mere coincidence. Oh yes, and I think it's kinda expressive.

So considering how much I disliked carving plaster to start with, I'm proud that I managed to get it done.

Project 3

I hardly had time to start the wire sculpture. I've done that before in highschool and I remember that it took me quite a while to develop and build something nice. So, I think we really have too few time, especially considering that we can hardly work on it at home (no material, no tools). Anyway about this tools business, I agree with Evi that it really can't be true that IBS doesn't provide enough tools for everyone. After all that's what we pay so much more money for than the other IBS students, right?

Anyway, I hope I'll somehow get it done next class.

Susan's second work

Last week, we made sculpture from plastic. We had to draw down our plan, then create it from oil based clay for practical aims. After that we had to carve it from tha huge plastic piece.

I think, my plan was too complicated, because the carving was very-very difficult. I changed my plastic bag with Maya and the new one was strange for me, but the main problem was not this. I could not work because we had not enough tools. And I cut my hands all the time...

So, it was nothing what I created during the class, but I completed the task at home. It lasted till 3 hours. With a knife I could work easily, but it was still difficult. My figure is so small, and the plastic piece was too big, so I had to carve this little piece from that huge thing, which was very tiring, and I could not move my hands in the end, because it hurt so much. And I had to modify my plan, because I could not effect my original one. So, this is the purpose, why there are some differences between the clay-figure and the plastic one.

This is Evi:)

It was my first sculpture made of oil based clay. I used to make plates, cups and others of this material, but it was not a human face. I enjoyed very much. To make a first step was not difficult, but when I made a shape of the face than here started the problem to do the mouth and other parts of face. I made a nose and holes for eyes but after this I was very confused, because I had no idea how to make the eyes and mouth. Helpfully Paula showed as how to do it. The eyes a bit different, but I think somehow recognizable. May be the hair helps a lot to realize that it is Evi. So that’s how the sculpture of Evi was burn.

Evi's second sculpture:

Abstract figure. I had fun mixing the plaster..., but afterwards I think the plastic bags were not the best solution to pour the plaster in... I had difficulties with the given form. I had to make my sculpture much smaller than I wanted.
The clay sculpture is much thinner than the plaster one, the plaster one looks like it was made from a fat person... It doesn't look like a person, but I see the person in it.
I would have been happier, if we had had more tools and if we would have discussed how to use them... happy to have a former ceramics artist living with me.

Plaster carving - Maya

Wow! It was again something really new for me. I felt lost at the beginning, but afterward I started to have fun. I have made up the figure at first, and then I started to drawn a female body, who is sitting on the floor quasi on her legs, and after I tried to create an abstract form from this posture which is gently curved.

I guess it was the easiest part of this story, and the difficulties just came right after the drawing.

I tried to sculpt my abstract figure from clay. At first I found it difficult, but later I started to warm up, and after a while I realised that I truly like to work with this oil based clay. Probably it sounds a bit silly, but my hands started to feel the material and the shape of the imagined body.

Nevertheless I'm definitely not a sculptor, I feel it was a good effort. I like its curves and proportions.

But the plaster carving ... Oh, my Gosh! It was really-really difficult for me. First of all, beacuse the original shape of my plaster-block wasn't resembling to my abstract figure. Neither a little bit. I was shocked. And the tools... Oh, my Gosh, who knows how to use that strange tools, how to carve with that?! But of course I tried to create something with my bizarre plaster-block and freaky tool.

And then I realised that it's impossible to carve the imagined figure, as I wanted, as I would have like to carve.

I had to adapt to the circumstances, especially that particular plaster-block size and shape, and I had to modify my original figure to another one, which I don't really like.

I feel dissatisfied, but I couldn't carve it more likely.

And this is the issue - my oil based clay and the plaster figures together: