A treat to work from a live model
 

There's nothing like being able to work from a live model. There's so much more to see that gets lost when a model is flattened through photography.

This ceramic piece "Melisa" is the result of two 3-hour open studio's on back to back Saturday's. Classic Roman features and curly locks made this piece a joy to work on.

I was able to snap some photos of her so I could bring the piece home and finish it . Six hours is not enough time to complete the level of detail that I like to achieve. I'll post the finished piece after it is fired and a patina is applied.

Heidi,

Congratulations on all you got done in six hours! That's quite a lot of finishing detail. This shows how competant and experienced you are; quite amazing. I can vouch how much easier it is to conceptualize and sculpt forms from life. The 3-D is just popping out before your eyes.

Did you mostly eyeball this or use calipers? Great job!

Heidi,

This knocks my socks right off! I look forward to seeing more views, lots of details :)

Thanks Garth and Chris,
Part of my bad habits as a sculptor is that I work much too quickly and don't use calipers until it is too late. If I am pretty far along and something looks out of whack, then I resort to my calipers to do some relative measurement checks on the piece. If I find I am off, I hate to go back and rework. Especially on water based clay. I'm sure a lot of painters share this bad habit that is hard to break of getting too far ahead before you really study your relative measurements for accuracy.

Heidi,

Thanks for sharing your gift with us here. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the talent of a sculptor. I took just about every art class offered at the four schools I attended (30 years ago) and three of them were in sculpting. I just never even got CLOSE! I just don't get it! WhoooHooo!

Bravo!

-Geary

Wow. That looks like fun. I want to change my major :)

Spent a few more hours on her tonight and finished up as much modeling as I intend to do on this practice piece. I wish I had your quest for perfectionism Garth - but I get bored easy and am always anxious to get started on the next piece.

Wonderful
 

Wow! This is a practice piece?!?

Sure Julie, that's pretty much the meaning of an open studio. A place to get to practice making a "quickie" from a live model.

Geary, thanks. I always enjoy reading your enthusiastic and humorous posts. I can well relate to what you are saying. Hand me a piece of charcoal, graphite, pen and ink, and I know what to do with them. Throw color into the mix and I am TOTALLY lost!

Six hours! I'm still scratching my head at that point.

Wonderful!

Wow Heidi, that is terrific! You amaze me.

Amazing - especially the hair!

Hello Heidi,

Wow, So beautiful, I am at a loss of words to be able to describe how I felt when I saw it. I can say it was pure amazement.

My brother does that for a living. In fact he was just commissioned to do a 9' piece of Chief Supulpa, for Supulpa Oklahoma. He is probably one of the best I have ever seen. But, I can say this, your work reminds me of his, similar style.

His work on Chief Supulpa will be shown live via Web Cam step by step. As soon as it is online, which will be soon, I'll let you know if your interested.

But anyway, you should be proud of this work it is good, very good.
Oh and by the way, I dont see any of your weaknesses you mentioned in it.

By the way I tried getting to your site but the link wasn't working.


Mark Branscum

Thank you so much Sharon, Mary, Michele, and Mark

Mark, I would very much like to see the works of your brother that you mention and look forward to a link from you. The bronze process is pretty involved and amazing.

No doubt, we are all our own worst critics. I work in ceramic for the most part, but am getting more and more bronze opportunities which is encouraging and have several life size figure commissions in the planning stages.

For some reason, my domain has been misbehaving this week and clicking on the link brings up the ol "page cannot be displayed" error. Hitting the refresh button however brings it right up. It can also be accessed through the domain name "portraitsculpting.com".

Heidi, I just spotted this on the Forum, and I am so impressed. I'm astounded that you can work this fast. I love looking at your work.

I thought I would post the finished piece now that it has been dried, fired, patina'd, and mounted. (You could never make a finished one in an open studio since the drying alone takes weeks.)

I thought I would show the interesting effect firing at different temperatures can have. Normally, I fire this clay in the mid range of about cone 2 to produce a nice creamy white. If I had fired it to maturity (cone 5), the clay would have been pure white.

Here, I only bisque fired it to cone 018 (about a 900 degree temperature difference). The result was a nice peach skin tone which I just sealed and covered with a clear wax. Since no repair was needed at such a low fire, I could leave the natural color of the clay show through.

Couple other angles and close up if interested in details...

Heidi,

TOTALLY and completely mind blowing AWESOME!

And, your firing technique was perfect. This is just getting better and better. I sure hope you're havin a ball doing this work.....cause I'm havin one looking at it! :sunnysmil

-Geary

Gorgeous!
 

The joy you had in creating this is evident! Let my voice join my the chorus of amazed and admiring viewers.:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Heidi,

My husband and I are in awe of your work. I especially like the peach low fire look. I was a ceramics minor way back when in college and understand the process you must go through to get this fired without breakage and I know you have some sleepless nights sometimes.

Thank you so much for posting such great pictures of your work. I would love to see your work in person - do you show in any galleries on the east coast?

Denise

Linda, Geary, Jeanine, and Denise,
Thank you all so much for your generous comments and I love looking at all of your works as well. This forum is a treasure indeed.

Denise, hi, I don't think I've run across you in the forum yet. Ceramic is a fun medium I did a lot of experimenting trying to figure out how to fire a nearly solid piece without even a single hairline crack. The secret is to steam dry, not air dry them.

The only piece I've ever had break beyond repair was, unfortunately, a piece that was not mine. A young gal had made a bust of her father's dog to give to him as a Christmas present and at that time I used to do some firing for people through the local ceramic outlet. I told her to make sure it was completely dry before she brought it over for me to fire. The day she brought it was a cold (minus 25 degree) morning and I just assumed the piece was cold because it had been in her trunk and it didn't dawn on my that it was still wet. She also was not sure what kind of clay it was or what the cone was. It looked like a terra cotta red, so I mistakenly thought it must be a cone 5 clay. Two days later when I looked in the kiln to take it out, I was mortified to see nothing but a pile of red dust.

To this day, over 20 years later, I still get a sick knot in my stomach thinking about the phone call I had to make to her to let her know that it was ruined beyond repair and not to come pick it up. She was not a happy camper. I never fired any one else's stuff again after that until just this month I fired a friend's first bust and it turned out perfectly, thank God.

The only galleries I showed in were in Idaho from 1990-99. Now most of the work I make are one of a kind commissions, so there are no pieces currently on display at any public locations. I thought about approaching galleries here in Phoenix, but there is so much competition here that I have often heard that the galleries resent being "confronted" by artists every day seeking representation so that has kept me away.

Heidi,



I do have a rudimentary website - but it's still got a lot of kinks. I haven't posted for critique in this forum in a long time - mostly due to horrible digitals of my work I continuously end up with!

I have a painting, Portrait of Marie, which was juried into the Portrait Society of Atlanta's spring exhibition this year which I may post here. I still don't have a really good photo of it and the one they have on the Atlanta site is not that good either (sorry to the powers that be):)

Your story about the firing and the "blow up" brings back bad memories. I really am so sorry that it had to be someone else's work but to get that far and not realize that your piece is not dry was really not to swift on her part! Give yourself a break on that one! Also, if she wasn't sure what cone to fire it to - thats a major prob. as well. I'm surprised you even fired it but then.........I can tell you are a nice, helpful person! I'm sure she understood even if all she had was a pile of dust.




Again, I love your work and please keep em coming!


Denise

I didn't want to start a new thread, but could use some opinions so I thought I'd add this post here.

This piece is "Gretchen" from the Scottsdale Artist school which was made in three consecutive Saturday Open studio sessions. I took it home and thought I'd have some fun with it by adding some flowers.
Do you think they add to the piece, or do they just look like stuck on "cake frosting" decorations?

Just beautiful Heidi, your sculpture is a joy to look at.

I like the flowers. I guess it depends on what you and the client (is there one?) are aiming to express. If the goal is traditional, classic sculpture, then the flowers take away from that. If the goal is something more modern and personal, then the flowers work.

Heidi,

Beautiful work! I like the flowers. I think it forms a nice balance with the one in her hair, it completes the composition to me. Lovely!

Well Heidi, I'm going to comment in the most prodigious and professional way I know how about your work here........

YOU RAWK DUDE!!

:thumbsup: :D :thumbsup:

-Gear

Golly, thanks for the positive feedback guys.
No Michele, there is no client on this one so I am free to make it however I see fit.
It seems these practice pieces don't move very well (after all, who wants a portrait of some stranger staring at them in their living rooms? I for one don't ). Making it a little more decorative might appeal more to John Q. Public. Giving it a title of, let's say, "Flora - goddess of flowers" or some such thing might help me actually sell it rather than not if it is left plain with a boring title of "Gretchen - a studio study".
What do you all do with your practice portraits? I have a room full of them I use for shows and either toss, donate, or give the older ones away eventually if I can find anyone who wants them.

Heidi, this is a beautiful sculpture. Your work is so lovely.

I think trying to sell this as a genre, figurative piece is worth a shot. Could you make it one of a series of people with flowers around them?

Some of my earliest practice portraits are in the garage where they may never again see the light of day. The better ones are hanging in the homes of the subjects who posed for me, "on loan," where they have occasionally generated commissions from other people who have seen them. I donated one early sample portrait to a charity since the person depicted was related to their cause.

The more recent practice portraits I've done that were good enough are being used as my samples. Most of the year I hang them in my studio, or exhibit them when I do demos etc. I have about five portraits that fit into that category.

Heidi,

Your work is much to good to be tossing around - literally and aesthetically! I wish I lived nearer to you so you could "donate" one of your sculptures to my school for my students to actually see a beautiful example of classical sculpture in the raw instead of just seeing them on a tv screen "visit to the art museum". When I think of all the "sculptures of (nearly) strangers in The Vatican, Uffizzi, Louvre, on and on, like The David, Moses, Aphrodite, Eros, etc. - well, I would love to have one of your pieces looking at me in my living room!

Keep up the good work - I think your talent is rare!

Denise

Heidi,

Your work overwhelms me, I think it is just wonderful.

As I encounter the constant questioning from those considering a portrait in oil or pastel and they seem to feel it is an indulgent out of their realm, I just can't imagine what you would run into with people thinking of a sculpture of themselves.

I would love to know the demographics of those who purchase your lovely work, and if it's not too nosy - what a piece like this would sell for if commissioned?

It's funny but it has always been a secret dream of mine to work for Madame Tussaud's, their sculptors are wonderful too. I even wanted to work sculpting fake foods!

:thumbsup:

Linda,
What a sweet thing to say. That is a good idea about making a series. I have been thinking about making a series of portraits of Greek or roman gods and goddesses - either in full round, or high relief - each with a different theme. That could be interesting.

Michele,
I can't imagine that any painting you have ever made deserves to be banished to the garage. Your work is so serene and peaceful and would be a welcome addition to any wall.

Denise,
I may just take you up on that the next time I feel the need to put one up for adoption. I have shipped them all over the country without any problems, so distance is not an issue. It is nice to think that a piece I've made could inspire some young child to pursue art and come to know the joys of sculpting.

Elizabeth,
Madame Tussaud - as in the wax museums? Those works are eerily realistic. What fun that would be to be able to work for a place like that. It would really force you to be observant and pay painstaking attention to detail.
No particular demographics - orders come from all types of people (young and old) and from various locations, but all have been within the USA. I have a rep in Lake Tahoe who markets my work to the locals there through his site SandHarbor.net and we are getting a lot of interest there. Typical pricing for a life-size one of a kind ceramic bust like this is around $2000 and takes about 3 months from start to finish. From the research I have done, this is on the low end, but I couldn't justify them being any higher without a year or so waiting list.
Like the rest of us, I still feel like I have a ton of room for improvement. It's nice if we can look back on older pieces and be able to clearly see that we are slowly making those improvements. Makes us look forward to what we can ultimately achieve if we remain persistent.

Heidi, just a side note - there is a wonderful documentary about the artists who work in London. It is mainly about the sculptures and is fascinating!

Now that I would like to see. Do you have any information on where one might find that documentary?

I guess I never did answer your question about demographics. I would say that most of the orders I get are of a person's dog (living or deceased), their child, a deceased or living parent, or grandparent. Every once in a while, someone wants a bust made of themselves. One musician fellow ordered a bust of himself and then his wife. He then later commissioned a bust of his favorite pianist. All I had to work from was a very old newspaper clipping in which he wore thick black glasses (which I included). I made the base in the shape of a grand piano in black walnut with an inlay of white maple for the keys. He was tickled pink with that one.

Another fellow was a retired war vet and ordered a bust to be mounted on his headstone that was already waiting for him in a cemetery. Another client wanted a portrait of himself and his wife to be made so that he could give copies to each of his 6 children. Another was a college student who wanted a bust made of his deceased grandfather. I'm sure like you, people come to me with a variety of requests to fit their particular desires and what is meaningful to them.

Thought I would sneak this in here as a follow up. This is the final result of "Flora - Goddess of Flowers". Fired and coated with bronze and patina on a curly maple base.

Wow! Georgious! I would love to see this in person . . .

Wow, what a beautiful piece, Heidi. The patina finish works well with your choice of base. I really enjoy viewing your sculpture work.

I think the color is beautiful and this turned out very sensitively done - the expression is wonderful. Also - a great photo of it!

Congratulations,

Denise

Thanks Denise, Richard, and Patricia
If you ever do any work in ceramic, bronze, aluminum, cement, plaster, or just about any other medium really, there are some great patina products available at:

http://www.sculptnouveau.com/

The Ron Young line of patinas offers a wide range of products including metallic coatings, acid washes, colored dyes, and colored waxes that can be used in combination to make infinite variations of finishes. I have a great time experimenting with them.