Final day working on the portrait sculpture

{front view of John}

Hello,

Today was the last day with our current model, so it also was the last time to work on the portrait and refine it more.

As a recap, this is the state it was in at the beginning of the class today. At the time class started I thought it was pretty good and was initially in a quandary of what needed attention and where to start.

{status at the end of last week}

Then as I looked at the piece with a more patient eye I began to see discrepancies and areas that needed to be refined and developed more. Some areas needed to be filled out more, other areas needed a more subtle transition from one plane to another plane. I worked alot today on the shape of the eye socket and how the eyes fit within in, which included making some significant changes to the check and nose.

A few concepts learned today had to do with how to look at the sculpture and the model in a way that helped to identify the areas that needed to be altered. Last week I had mainly looked at the head strait on for the front, back, and sides. Today the three-quarter view was particularly important in helping to improve the shapes and how the front face plane intersected with the side plane of the face.

Sculpture is different than painting and drawing in that it requires you to think about the whole where with 2-dimensional work you only need to consider one view, however it is similar to painting in drawing in that you block in, go over and refine, then further refine, and so on... Making the process potentially a never ending situation. :) That is if you are really compulsive!

{three-quarter view}

{side profile}