The Western Girl

So – after a five month gap I’m finally sculpting again!

Due to a new edition to the family (namely – Izzzy the wonder dog) all our time has been spent getting her settled to family life and house trained, please to say the pup is happy and work can commence without dog wanting attention all the time.

The current project is “The Western Girl” based on an photograph of Annie Oakley, its a low relief sculpt set on an oval base.

The inspiration for this style of presentation has come from seeing  a work sculpted by Bill Merklein which had been painted my Penny Meyer. Apart from being an elegant way to show off the work its also a joy to be able take the thickness of the figure right down to almost nothing thanks to the base (which allows me far more scope to achieve depth).

The image I’m working from is a profile shot of Oakley when she appeared in a stage melodrama, I will not be sculpting it “as is” but I will be  producing an artist interpretation of it from a number of similar images.

At this moment the base has been shaped from original grey “Sculpey Firm” which has been fired and sanded to shape. The outline of the figure has been produced (from Sculpey firm and a Fimo light green mix) and a rough sculpt rendered to find the shape and depth of the face. This is my first profile sculpt and is already throwing up new but really interesting challenges, I’ve so far only done full face and 3/4 head sculpts which allows you to simply sculpt as normal, profile however demands a far more subtle approach, especially around the eye region to suggest depth rather that actually sculpt it (more on in a later post).

Here is the progress so far, a few hours in and time to take a photo to show the truth of the what I’ve produced, rough and ready with a lot mistakes to correct before the real work starts – but so far – so good!

I will be posting more regularly form now on – so until the next time – wishing you all good health and happiness…

…Rich