Okay, so I have been terrible about updating my blog as often as I had hoped. I have been consumed with guilt over it but, hey, I am in no way perfect!! Having said that, I am enjoying a respite from a tense, deadline-driven schedule to explore some personal projects--like the above sculpture. I love sculpting. There is a real zen thing that happens as you move the clay around. After a day of fighting deadlines and freaking out about the next freelance gig, it feels so nice to do something totally unrealated. This is a bust of, you guessed it, Francis Marion. I am continuing my journey into the American Revolution in South Carolina--for which Marion has been something of a muse.
This piece is done in sculpey. Sculpey is a polymer clay that polymerizes when baked into a hard plastic-like substance. The cool thing about sculpey is that you can bake it in stages--building up between bakings. You can also add some cool effects by using lighter fluid or alcohol as a solvent. After I finish this piece, I plan to make multiple castings of it in resin. We'll see... It's a lot of work and who knows if I'll have the time. Still, I am hoping to do more of this stuff... Stay tuned!
6 comments:
James--hearing you talk about using clay and doing sculptures takes me way back to the days of the really creative monsters you used to do at Big Salley's house. Needless to say I was most impressed back then--but now--the growth in all areas of your art takes my breath away. I am very proud of you--and am enjoying watching all aspects of your talent grow.
The Swamp Fox... very nice. Do you bake it in a large oven or a kiln... how hot does it get? Excuse the elementary question... I'm a novice?
Hi Bo,
Thanks for stopping by the blog! I have been looking at yours and must say that I am impressed that you managed to stumble upon my humble efforts here at the "smear." Please check back often!
Oh, and the sculpey has to be baked at 250 degrees for about ten minutes in a conventional oven. It's great stuff. Once it hardens, you can handle it pretty soon after it's out of the oven.
Great sculpture! I've just recently done some toy prototypes in sculpey and fell in love. It's a great material that just doesn't harden until you want it to, and it's so easy to work with. I've never seen anything of THIS calibre with sculpey, so it's nice to see that it can be used for something at this scale.
btw, my kids love to use it too!
Fantastic sculpture! Oh, and breaks from posting are good ;)
A very nice piece of work indeed !!
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