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!