Back in the saddle!

Its been a long hard summer of house renovations at the Odell household, so all sculpting work regrettably had to go hold as all my equipment, tools and supplies had to be put into storage (plus having no where to work!). In the fact the whole house has been in total disarray for months, with little enough space to store the essentials for feeding ourselves (fridge in the living room?).

Still – something good came out of it all. Once the dust had settled, re-decorating had been completed and with all items back in the places they should be, I had a enough space in a old out building to create a studio. Its nothing more than an old brick garden storage shed that was erected in the 1950’s – its small (just enough for an old computer desk and a chair, but its been damp proofed, a floor laid and a run electrics installed (plus a lick of paint to make it more like home!). To say I’m happy with it is an understatement – for the first time in over twenty years I now have a workspace that is quiet, dry and undisturbed – a place totally dedicated to my artwork. 🙂

So to the next project – what’s up next?

I have so many projects on the back-burner its crazy! So much that I want to do but I can’t because of copyright concerns, more in depth research and waiting on permissions from image owners. However – I have came up with a simple solution?

One image I have had for a while is of a US Navy Yeoman from the early 1900’s. Its a really striking image, but its a head and shoulder shot (I desperately want to sculpt full figures for the moment to bring my skill level up), also for the life of me I cannot trace the image holder to ask permission to use it.

As ever I’m taking a chance posting this image on the left, but you need to see this to understand the process.

With the next sculpt I’m ‘Morphing’ two ideas into one. From the Naval History & Heritage Command website I found a photo of a US Nurse from the same time period this photo has a pose that screams out to be used. The uniform is all but identical and best of all its in the public domain! Checked and rechecked this, confirmed with this quote from the website…

To the best of our knowledge, all Online Library pictures are in the public domain and can therefore be freely downloaded and used for any purpose without requesting permission.

Thank you US government!

So here we go. On the left is the head and shoulder shot, in the middle is the nurse, on the right is my very rough attempt with Photoshop to bring the two ideas together.

As I say the image on the right is very rough! Yet it gives me the feel of the subject and the proportions. As the image on the left is clearer I can use all the reference of the uniform, clothing folds and textures (in fact her left arm position is almost identical to nurses). The Yeoman’s uniform is very well documented, with a lot of original examples existing, so accuracy should be pretty well sorted.

Sculpt starts on Monday. I will not be posting step by step on this sculpt as I  pretty well covered it all with the London Ambulance Column figure . I will however be posting a work in progress.

So –  stay tuned – I will be back with more soon..

-Rich

PS: If you are the image owner mentioned above, it will be removed upon receipt of supportive evidence of copyright ownership. If however you like what I do and give permission for its use, I will gladly link back to its source.