I'm still working, I just haven't posted anything for a while because I've been really busy with work, lifting, ballin', friends, gf, family, etc. I'm working on a male figure in wax, because I think that I really need some more practice before I try to make an actual "piece".
One thing that I'm looking forward to is using all 10 pounds of wax from Plaza Art to make one big sculpture.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
one last arm
I'm not sure if it comes across, but the metal parts are supposed to be forearm bones. There is a cloth covering where the arm ends. Noah will recognize the influence of the claw.
Monday, October 11, 2010
More bionic glove sketches
This one has a crude support structure. I think that I will do one more before moving on. I like the pistons on the knuckles.
I like said- I can't draw. I was trying to mess around with the sizes, which is why the guy on the bottom has a gigantic fist.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Scythe-hands
I've made some more progress on this guy over the past week. Honestly, though, I don't think that I can do much more on him-- its kind of frustrating. I just don't know enough about the human body to make him realistic. My mom gave me her old figure-drawing anatomy books, and my plan is to take figure sculpting at the Torpedo Factory in December.
Friday, October 8, 2010
New Project
This is for a new project, kind of like a sketch. There will be a person attached at some point. I'll show pencil and paper sketches soon, and you all can see why I make sculptures and not drawings.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Words!
I’ve put off my work on the Athena sculpture for now. I still want to talk about the power of allusions in sculpture, though. Please read if you have the time/patience.
The ability to convey a concept is one of the most important aspects of art. Art, like literature, is a medium of culture. The mindset of a culture is created by what is passed down through generations, and having a say in this passage is a powerful thing. People can be sometimes be convinced of things through logic, but they take for granted hundreds of seemingly strange or unhappy or illogical things because of their culture.
Although I wouldn't dare to get into a definition of Art itself, I think that a general definition of art deals with its ability to evoke some type of response. Meaning is created in the interaction between the viewer and the work- they call it reader response theory in literature. Sometimes people doubt whether the response that is evoked by a piece of art is one that art is supposed to evoke, like Damien Hirst's cow halves. Often, I think, what a piece intends to evoke is simply beauty, or motion, or something simple like this (abstract art often is in this category).
Some art intends to convey not a concept, but a message. A painting can employ a scene, and therefore an interplay of objects and people, to convey its meaning. Sculpture usually does not have this luxury. Therefore, the use of allusion is all the more important.
Because I see things in terms of literature (if you hadn’t noticed) I will now explicitly state my extended metaphor- literature is like sculpture. A writer could write a paragraph describing a particular situation, or they could write a single sentence alluding to a myth and convey the same meaning. The allusion is even more effective because it engages the reader, and encourages them to both recall the myth and fit it into the present situation. It also makes the story more relatable because it draws off of shared knowledge.
Of course, if you want to say something new you have to do more than just mention a myth; you have modify it. This was the main concern of the Greek playwrights- they told and retold old myths in new ways, focusing on different characters and making up new details in order to convey their message. The concept of cyclical time is important here, where events are only important in how they refer to a mythical past. But that it outside the scope of this post.
Back to sculpture-- sometimes all you have is a single sentence. I believe that the deepest depth of meaning that you can achieve is through allusion to, and modification of, some piece of shared knowledge.
Of course, it would be absurd of me to say that all sculpture has to follow what I have outlined here. This is something that makes sense to me.
The ability to convey a concept is one of the most important aspects of art. Art, like literature, is a medium of culture. The mindset of a culture is created by what is passed down through generations, and having a say in this passage is a powerful thing. People can be sometimes be convinced of things through logic, but they take for granted hundreds of seemingly strange or unhappy or illogical things because of their culture.
Although I wouldn't dare to get into a definition of Art itself, I think that a general definition of art deals with its ability to evoke some type of response. Meaning is created in the interaction between the viewer and the work- they call it reader response theory in literature. Sometimes people doubt whether the response that is evoked by a piece of art is one that art is supposed to evoke, like Damien Hirst's cow halves. Often, I think, what a piece intends to evoke is simply beauty, or motion, or something simple like this (abstract art often is in this category).
Some art intends to convey not a concept, but a message. A painting can employ a scene, and therefore an interplay of objects and people, to convey its meaning. Sculpture usually does not have this luxury. Therefore, the use of allusion is all the more important.
Because I see things in terms of literature (if you hadn’t noticed) I will now explicitly state my extended metaphor- literature is like sculpture. A writer could write a paragraph describing a particular situation, or they could write a single sentence alluding to a myth and convey the same meaning. The allusion is even more effective because it engages the reader, and encourages them to both recall the myth and fit it into the present situation. It also makes the story more relatable because it draws off of shared knowledge.
Of course, if you want to say something new you have to do more than just mention a myth; you have modify it. This was the main concern of the Greek playwrights- they told and retold old myths in new ways, focusing on different characters and making up new details in order to convey their message. The concept of cyclical time is important here, where events are only important in how they refer to a mythical past. But that it outside the scope of this post.
Back to sculpture-- sometimes all you have is a single sentence. I believe that the deepest depth of meaning that you can achieve is through allusion to, and modification of, some piece of shared knowledge.
Of course, it would be absurd of me to say that all sculpture has to follow what I have outlined here. This is something that makes sense to me.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
air drying clay
Air drying clay is difficult to use for things like this. You can't use armatures, apparently, because the clay shrinks as it dries. Otherwise, I like it- it feels like real clay more or less. Anyway, you have to spend half your time keeping the thing supported and worrying about putting too much pressure on it. I'm planning on going back to extra firm sculpey for the next piece.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Wax
I think that this has been the longest between posts so far. I am still making things though- I've just been busy.
Here is a new wax figure. My girlfriend graciously modeled for me. Its not done yet- she will have a face, hands, feet, and hair at some point. I will also do some more work to refine her body (the sculpture, not the gf). Hope you guys like it.
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