Day 25

If you know who this is- hell yea, you are the man. If not, thats ok too. Its Cerebus, the most famous barbarian aardvark from the longest running English comic book by a single team, created by Dave Sim.

Making his face I realized that Cerebus seems to have inspired some later characters. He has the connected eyes of Sonic and the "disturbing soft-serve flip" of Strong Sad. His mouth, which is in two parts- one on either side of his head- is all his own.

Day 24

My thumb's self portrait, made with a workshop of nearby fingers. Not perfect, but I had a good time making it.

Day 23

Quick geometric piece. My new sculpey would have worked better for this.

Day 22

This sculpture is angrily shaking its fist, angry at its creator for making it into an angry fist.

More Pottery

Here is a teapot that I just today got around to taking pictures of. Its all hand-thrown on a wheel. There is something about ring bottles that I find extremely cool, so I'm planning on working with them more in the future.

Day 21

The only sculpture so far to have been created entirely while driving.

Day 20

I don't really know what to say about this one. Its my new firm super sculpey, so thats pretty cool.

Day 19

I feel that, because I'm making one-day sculptures, and I don't have time to do anything complex, I should practice segments, to someday combine. Here, we have a foot.

Day 18

Low on time today, so here are some little mushrooms.

Day 17

Human figures are very difficult, but I'ma keep working at it.

Day 16

Another armature today. Or is it a handiture? No, definitely an armature.

Day 15

If any of my myriad and numerous readers are art people, they may recognize that this is not a stand-alone piece, but an armature. It also doubles as todays sculpture, and all for one low price. Good stuff.

Day 14

The concept for this one is that in some sculpture the sculptor leaves marks of the sculpting process, making the piece aware of itself as a work of art, and often making it look cool as well. This piece, however, is nothing but the marks of its creation- it has no particular form in itself, if that is possible. It is a negative still image of the motion of my fingers. Good stuff.

Day 13

Another thing that I want to learn how to sculpt, other than figures and faces, is cloth. There is a lot to learn. I want the viewer to be able to see the form underneath and how the cloth rests on it. Here there is nothing to see but cloth.

Day 12

I would be frustrated if the purpose of this project were to make finished products instead of just being an exercise. What I learned- work on the whole piece equally, never finish a section and then move on. Maybe I should plan more; the cranium is was not nearly large enough, I had to hollow it out to expand it. Afterwards, my ability to manipulate the piece was restricted by its fragility. Also, Sculpty is more temperamental than I had thought.

some more angles

This post is for you, Tina.

Day 11

This is another sculpture that I made without a plan. Its difficult to work with the floral foam-- its so fragile. I was glad to do something other than clay, though.

Day 10

This was one of those sculptures that works itself out as you make it.

The flower-thing is cutting into the sphere, not growing out of it. Just thought I'd let you know.

Day 9

I was taking the advice of my one and only active reader, trying to do something abstract and geometric, when I came up with this. I wanted to do something that seems like it should fall over, and I thought of Sisyphus again.

The figure is inspired by Dali's elephants, although the scale is not so large as to get the same effect. There are two thin metal pieces going through the thing to keep it together, one through the figure. The pyramid is held up by a film canister.

The sphere is hollow because it would be lighter and the pyramid is hollow because I'm running out of clay.

Day 8

First attempt at a non-human face. Modeled off of Warhammer Beastmen figures, to a large extent. Didn't turn out great, but could be worse. I like non-human faces because you can make up the way they are supposed to look. I need wire for armatures- I had to put a paper clip through this guy's head to get the horns to stay the way they are.

I think my sculptures need bolder lines-- if they are going to do something, they should do it with confidence.

Day 7

Second attempt at making a face. Better in some ways and worse in others. I like the first. Its so much more dignified.

Misc Sculpture

Here is a sampling of the sculptures I've done over the years. The first inspired by Poe's The Raven. The bird and heart were made in wax and cast in aluminum. The entire poem is burned into the wooded base.











A porcelain Raven, which exploded in the kiln.












This is modeled off of Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Check it out, its one of my favorite of his works, which I was lucky enough to see in the Tate Modern a few weeks ago.









Junior year of high-school. Brown paper bags dipped in glue and laid over chicken wire. The scale is slightly larger than life.














Carved out of a block of plaster.

Pottery

In addition to sculpture, I've taken some classes in wheel-thrown pottery. Here's some of my work.

Day 6

This is my first attempt at making a face. Its very hard, as I'm sure you can tell. Philippe Faraut has some great bust-sculpting videos on youtube. Its both inspiring and depressing so see someone so good. I plan on trying many more faces, so hopefully we will see some improvement.

Day 5

Inspired by the Myth of Sisyphus, both the actual myth and the essay by Albert Camus. His novel The Stranger is a short but powerful work, among my favorites.

"A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself!"-Camus

Day 4

This is my most rushed and least favorite sculpture, but they can't all be good and I have to put them all up. Its a griffin? Something like that.

Day 3

Though it is impossible to tell, I think, this is inspired by Auguste Rodin. I have just discovered how much I enjoy his work. Check out his wikipedia page, its very interesting.

His Gates of Hell are especially cool, inspired as they are by Dante's Inferno. Some of Rodin's most famous sculptures, like The Thinker and The Kiss, are enlarged versions of figures on these gates.

I was lucky enough to go to Florence only a few weeks ago and see Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, which were the inspiration for Rodin's piece.

Day 2

A pheonix-like bird coming out of an egg.

Day 1

Quick sketch of the Nike of Samothrace. The real one is in the Louvre, beautiful sculpture.

Hello, World

I am 22 years old, and just got my BA in English Literature from Christopher Newport University. I am currently job hunting for something in technical writing. After leaving college and thinking about what to do with my life, I realized that the one thing that I enjoy doing most is making sculptures.

I also like reading web comics. There is one called Pictures for Sad Children by a guy named John Campbell. He has a project where he makes a comic for every hour that he is awake, for the first month of every year. This inspired me to do my own version, in which I make a new sculpture every day for at least a month, hopefully a full year.

I have never written a blog on my own before, but I know how easy it is to lose inspiration or become frustrated with a project like this. I am writing this to make my undertaking seem official. If anyone is reading- I welcome tips or suggestions, and I hope you like my work.