My Sculpture

I started a sculpture class at the beginning of the year and here it is in September and my very first sculpture is finally finished. Phew! I thought I would share with you some of the steps of how I made it.

The teacher in the first class handed me a lump of clay and said here sculpt something (No really she did - that was the 'lesson'). I decided to do a fig tree stump. I don't know why really - it just popped into my head. This is after 3 hours of 'playing'.

The next class I decided to add a tree nymph coming out of the tree as if the tree has been cut down and she's still stuck there.

After 3 classes of sculpting the clay the next step is to cover the clay in silicon.

Then you build a clay wall down the middle to support the plaster in the next step.

This is her covered in plaster that will form the mold for the next step.

Once the plaster is set you break open the mold and pull the clay out. My clay had lots of wire in it to keep it up so the clay was rusting and no good. It was sad throwing her in the bin.

Next you fill up the space where the clay was with plaster. This is a view from the bottom.

Uh oh. This is her now in her plaster form but she broke as she came out of the mold. It took quite a bit surgery to get her back together again. Then I gave her a good sanding, a coat of glue, a hell of a lot of paint (I think there's 6 coats) and then a crackle medium to crack the paint. Following that was hours of twirling and glueing copper wire to her head. Then..

Voila! She's done and ready to be dropped off for the exhibition.

A close up of the crackle effect.

This is her on her pedestal at the opening night to the exhibition at the sculpture gallery. This photo was actually really hard to get as the place was absolutely packed. So packed I even saw two people bump her as they walked past so I'm glad she survived the night!

She's titled "Did you lose your home too?" and is basically asking the viewer to question what else we lose when we cut down our forests. What about the spirit of the tree? Are they forced to rot alongside the remains of the tree? A little morbid perhaps but I hope it leads people to ask questions and ponder.

Hope you enjoyed this little showing!

:)Kim