Drawing Upon Inspiration- Experimenting with Sculpture

For the past few weeks I have been primarily focusing on drawing women in all different shapes and sizes. Although I was pleased with these drawings, I felt a little bit stuck with how I could develop my project further; this led me to the decision to experiment with a different medium, sculpture.

Since my earliest interest in art I have been fascinated by depictions of the human form. It has been an obsession of artists forever – think of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, Giacometti, to name just a few. And right now we are preoccupied with our bodies –  think of how much we think obesity and diets, zero-sized models and plastic surgery. Painting and drawing can take you so far – and I have been pushing at the edges of what I can achieve. But sculpture opens up a third dimension – it’s like I am moulding flesh and I am excited about how I can bring something palpable and visceral into my depictions of the human form. The imperfection of these shapes is part of the point – our bodies ARE imperfect, but as a society we find it hard to accept that and obessess over trying to achieve the unattainable perfect body. 

From the images that I had previously drawn, I decided to turn these different drawings of women into miniature sculptures. For my first sculpture, I wanted to experiment with Plastercine (Newplast brand) as it is a very flexible material. Although it doesn't dry completely, you can mould it into any shape you wish too without it breaking apart or going out of its position. When I first used it I thought that I might be able to heat it in the oven to harden it however; after some research I learnt that doing so would actually melt it completely. So I left my sculptures to air dry.

Whilst creating these sculptures, I also experimented with another type of material, a clay called 'DAS'. However, I did not feel satisfied at all with this product, as it was very difficult to mould together. Although, I did try wetting the clay to make it more flexible, it would not stick together, and was very time consuming.  Eventually, I realised that using this product was not for me, and reverted back to using plastercine for my models.

These are the final results of my sculptures.

This sculpture was much larger than the other models, using up a whole packet of plastercine in its creation. Before I had made this sculpture, a lot of my other models had very tiny physiques; which led me to the decision to make a much larger model. Although, it's not necessarily as perfect in it's appearance as the others, I found this model the most interesting one. 

Conclusion 

Creating these sculptures was a very enjoyable and interesting experience; as I was able to experiment with the shape and sizes of these models figures. Although I did have some complications in the process using other clay material- I discontinued using this; and I eventually produced around five different models using plastercine. I had never really experimented with sculpture before this project so it was very interesting to see what the outcome of these sculptures was going to be. I have realised now that I would defiantly like to incorporate sculpture into my work again in the future; particularly with using plastercine, which is a very easy and flexible material to use. In terms of improving my project, I think that I would have made more plastercine models, making some larger ones, given more time.