Head Sculpting With Clay

Friday 25th of January I participated in a head sculpting session with Chris Hunt, which I have never taken part in before. To prepare I had to use the pre-made armature, made out of wood. I needed to wrap up and bulk it out with news paper, which I did by twisting pieces of newspaper and sticking it on with masking tape. Once I was happy with the shape of my base I used string to tighten the structure up bit, leaving gaps in between the newspaper for the clay to have some grip. I then used clay to start covering my newspaper structure, making sure to press the clay into the gaps of the newspaper.

Zoe Plumbly was my model for the day, we both took turns modelling for each other, taking half hour intervals to swap over. To start I made a silhouette profile were I would look at the lines and angles that made up the shape of Zoes face. This allowed me to have a base to work with with height of the nose, eyes and mouth.

I then began making the three quarter view from one side of the face. This allowed me to start to bulk out the 3 dimension of Zoes face. I forgot to take a picture of this step however the image below is a more refined version of how it did look. From this I began building up the other side of the sculpture, I constantly looked at Zoes profile view to not loose sight of Zoes features.

This is how I left my head sculpture at the end of the day, I know it is not perfect however, for my first attempt to create a realistic replica of Zoe. I feel very proud with what I have achieved. It may not at this moment look like Zoe, I do intend on revisiting the sculpture to finish and refine it to be able to kiln fire it.