Finding the sweet spot
Bank holiday weekend recently. Big plans. Lots of sculpting to do. Intentions mapped out. Organised enough to start logging all the time I spend on making armatures, wrapping with mod rock and actual sculpting.
And yanking the armature around because occasionally, part way through, I’ve changed my mind about the look of the piece because I think it might work better with a limb placed differently or the pose feels too…predictable?
Recently I’ve wanted to catch moments of flight, transition or things being slightly off balance, as the expression or drama is at that point. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a poised arabesque or a crazy hand balance but they can be a bit ‘pretty pretty’ and you see them a lot in paintings and sculpture. I’m guilty. My last piece was an attitude wasn't it? These shapes – they are beautiful and tempting but I want to avoid doing the obvious all the time.
Sometimes I don’t see a new possibility until I’m well into working and then, with a sigh, I realise surgery is required. Out come the pliers, and then it gets ugly as limbs/neck/torso are straightened/bent/rotated in a completely new direction and I need to be an octopus to hold some parts in place while I move another. Maybe I’m just rubbish at armatures when moving a leg shifts the torso out of line but in my defence, these are often challenging postures so I guess it just goes with the territory. And when a new placement works, BAM, it instantly creates a totally different feel to the piece. I do like that moment.
Having had a few restructuring issues over the last week I’ve had a quick look at my time log.
Oh. That’s more hours than I’d expected. Definitely been underestimating making time although one piece wasn’t too efficient because of armature and paint issues. Then again, over the four days, that’s two completed pieces (but not painted yet), and over the week, those ones being finished, another getting tweaked and costumed and another piece about 60% sculpted (a lot of repositioning on that one too). Good enough all round and I must accept that everything takes a bit more time when I'm working to evolve my work as I go along. I just like to work fast and crack on with the next piece then the next and get a bit impatient if I can't finish things quickly.
The offending sculpture shown left. Her arms moved around like a flamenco dancer until I was happy with them. She was just too 'posed for a photograph' when I started. Then the torso needed more tilt and finally, I couldn't get the 'skin' colour right and it ended up dull looking. I'm going for warm, rich colours rather than any kind of authenticity; after all my 'white/caucasian' figures are just painted...white! Skin tones of any kind are tricky so...artistic interpretation is my technique. Who knows what colours will show up in future pieces?
