Sculpture Workshop

Thought you might like to see a couple of photos (courtesy of Sue!) of the wonderful sculpture workshop that I went to last September.

The workshop is local to me, in an old bakery, and its great to have all the tools, equipment and patient expertise on hand.

Getting ready to do some welding.  You can see the found metal which used as armature on the worktop (armature is the internal skeleton used in a sculpture).

 

This is Anne mixing herculite, a type of very hard plaster which is good for sculpting.  If you were making a plaster jacket for a mould, you would use a softer grade of plaster.

This is Mary, sculpting her 'green man' garden ornament head out of clay.  Mary always makes the most amazingly expressive figures!  

This will be covered in a plaster jacket, the clay removed from the inside, and concrete or jesmonite poured into the void inside the plaster to make a model exactly like the clay figure.  The figure is then all set for putting in an outdoor garden setting.

This is Mies getting some hands-on advice from Billy.  Mies is applying the plaster jacket to her figure - the clay model that she has been working on is inside.  Mies makes very fluid, rhythmical sculptures, and has cast them in bronze at a local foundry, I believe.

Getting the force needed to cut armature rods is hard work!

As well as a wood fire inside for cold days, the workshop has large doors which lead out onto the back lanes of the tenements for sunny days - the bakery building is in the back court.  

Here, Billy is working on the mould for Mies's sculpture.

Hopefully I'll be doing some more sculptures soon back in the workshop.