Sculptures

These are some projects we've been doing in sculpture class for the past month or so. The first two were 2 week projects on contraposto figures. This is an Italian term for the way the body parts like the hips, shoulders, and legs turn in different directions when the person is standing in a relaxed pose. In classical Greek and Roman art it was considered essential in achieving artistic beauty.

My first sculpture didn't turn out very well. It just feels kind of stiff. I think because I was thinking too much about the geometric figure we just finished. In the second piece I kind of went by instinct and it turned out much better. I'm finding that often it's better not to think too much about technique, because it can interfere with a good gesture. I didn't get as high a grade as I expected for either, but I'm also learning we shouldn't worry about grades.

The last 3 sculptures were our 'rapid studies', each done in about 45 minutes. This was really fun, because we didn't have to worry about refining everything and could work very loosely. I'm really happy with how these turned out. The model actually liked my last one and took a picture of it for his website. :)