portrait-sculpture.com

[Tim LeVane]

I did a lot of drawing the last few days but I did manage to do a 4 hour quick study of a woman yesterday afternoon. I have been doing 3 or 4 quick study s in klean clay every week for the past month. I want to try and get a feel for the clay before trying anything major in it.

I prefer working in water and pottery clays but wanted try out plasticine clays to broaden my range of skill, that and the fact that its really cheap to come by here.

please feel free to point out any major or minor mistakes

[Alan I'Anson]

Hi Tim, I definately see a woman here, the softness is there. There is a certain roundness to the lower face, but I have known people with faces like that so it's not a problem. What I think could use some work is around the eyes and brow. It could be the picture (a profile or 3/4 shot would have helped to understand the shapes better), but there seems to be some flattening out of the eyes and the brow, as if the underlying bone structure isn't as one would expect. Also the eyelids don't seem natural... perhaps close observation of a few females might help... all in the name of art of course I think you have done a good job in such a short amount of time. Nice work.

Alan

[Tim LeVane]

Alan, thanks for the observations, I sorta ran out time on this one yesterday I did know that the eyes needed to be reworked. I was using a photo of an African american girl and had first modeled the face way too steep and had to redo the whole lower half of the face. I plan on spending another hour on it today so maybe I can fix the eyes and take another shot or two of it. My main goal is to be able to sketch in clay the way you do with drawing.

[Tamara]

Hi Tim,

Looks like you are having fun doing quick sketches. Something that helpful is to first make a general skull shape in clay and then start adding the fleshiness to that. That way you get the bone structure in there like you want.

Thanks for sharing your clay studies with us.

~Tamara
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Happy Sculpting!

[Tim LeVane]

I spent about another 30 to 45 minutes redoing the eyes and a tiny bit around the mouth. she still could use a more work I think but now I have to go cook dinner for the kids

[Tim LeVane]

Tamara, I tried your suggestion and it does help quite a bit I just did another sketch, this one is around 1/5 or 1/6 in size , spent about 30 min on it.

[Stuart]

Tim
I've been following your work here.
You are to be congratulated for bashing away at it at every spare moment and with apparently considerable family pressures.
Tamara has touched on the main area you could spend some time with which is the genral structure. I think you said you were going to work from someone who was going to model from you.
This is the best, with out any doubt.
The plastilene clays are OK for some work but you are right to favour the water based clays................they allow for more lively modelling, and less preoccupation with smoothing ultimately.
It may seem a strange suggestion, but I would suggest to forget about the face to begin with and spend as much time as you can looking at the underlying structure which is there, although less obvious in the smooth features of many young women.
This will help you to understand how the forms travel back and give depth to the features.
There is always a tendency for us all to rush to the surface, but the features depend so much on what lies beneath.
You might slow down a bit and explore these areas and also how the forms are developed by the tensions created by the underlying musclature and the effects of gravity.
Look forward to further developments
Stuart

[Tim LeVane]

Stuart,
thank you for your insight, I shall do my best to take your advice to heart

Tim