Keep Calm and Sculpt on

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At the start of the lockdown, I struggled a little bit moving out of the studio, not having classes or seeing my tutors. But when it settled down a bit I had a creative run! I was doing so much painting each day that was until, I realized I was behind on my art history assessment. This as usual paralysed my practical work because when I painted I was in fear of not getting my art history done. When doing my art history I was completely blank because I was stressing, it was gastaly! I decided that to keep myself claim, I should do some sculptural work.

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It may appear that for me sculpting can sometimes be a form of procrastination. These are the sculptures that I have been distracting myself with. They are taking a long time to complete, because they are not part of my degree, making me work on them intermittently. I usually like to slowly build up the clay. Consistently working over dry layers that will gradually form the figure..

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The picture on the left was taken July 1,2019. When she was in her early stages. The photo to the right is of another sculpture from June 26,2019. I had only just started sculpting this lady, as you can see I was working from a sketch. I think this is the first piece of sculptural work that I had made a physical plan for. Usually, I would just visualise ideas before picking up my clay, pondering on them as I work.

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As you can see she has changed a lot from the beginning layer, and the original plan, but this is all part of the process. The only reason I noted this plan down as a drawing was because I wasn’t in the position to sculpt, when the idea struck.

© 2020 Sculptures in-progress, Dottie-May Aston.

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Although she may look like she’s close to completion, I still have a lot more work ahead of me. Next I need to sculpt the ends of her fingers witch I will do individually so that I don’t accidentally destroy them – this cold take days. I also need to sand her and possibly carve some of her away as I think her knees need to be reworked. When the sculpting bit is done I will proceed to prime her with several layers of gesso. Then I will finally paint her, something that I’m both excited and scared to do.

I don’t normally share pictures of my work when it’s in-progress, nor do I share my sculptural work online, so I hope you like this post and share your thoughts.