The following sculptures are new, they took forever to make between drying, adding wet material, sculpting, drying, carving, and repeating that process over and over. The are available for sale on Etsy.com, while they last, they are one of a kinds. http://www.etsy.com/shop/clayworkman
The hand is made from Creative Paper Clay. Hand painted, as are the other two. For the paint I used what I had, which is very thin air brush paint, and only in primary colors, so I had to mix everything. It took awhile to get a smooth coat, not showing brush strokes. If you want to know how good of a sculptor you are; sculpt a hand. Plus the practice will help on doing other sculptures of the human form. The hand can look so wrong, so easily.
The Mermaid above I didn't want to paint at all. She looked good as white. She is sculpted with La Doll and the color and finish of La Doll is very nice. There was a little bleed through of some red from the box I used as a form for the rock she is laying upon. The red came through as a just a slight pink in her tail. That was ok, it was kinda cool looking. But later on some other blemishes showed up and I had to paint it. I'm sure the blemishes were my fault and not the fault with the clay. Since I had to paint her I wanted her to look kinda fishy and other-worldly. With the dark colors, she looks like she's in the moonlight, looking up at the moon or stars.
For this next sculpture I just wanted to make a quick, simple figurine. I did that, but I wasn't satisfied with simple, so I gave her a whip. Let me say here, this is a reflection of my sense of humor and not any preference. I think she looks like a simple figurine one would find from the 1950's, except for the whip. Judging by the people I work with, I know where most people's minds go upon seeing her holding a whip. But she could just be a lion tamer for all you know. I titled her "Lyin' Tamer" for a play on words. Or maybe she's virtuous and her prom date pissed her off. If you buy her, she can be whatever you want her to be. Here she is:
She is sculpted from Sculpey Air-dry Clay. I figured Sculpey would make a good clay that blends well. I was right. This is the easiest air-dry clay to sculpt I've come across, and dries harder. If you sand, you'll have to sand a little harder. It shrinks a bit when drying, and thin pieces can warp. I tried to make a base for the hand out of the Sculpey, didn't work. I used Creative Paper Clay for the base on the hand and it had less warp as it dried. I think I like Creative Paper Clay better. Creative Paper Clay is a little harder to work just because you have to smear in new material and shape it again. The Sculpey air-dry is cheaper too, but I didn't like the finish compared to Creative Paper Clay. I would leave Creative Paper Clay unpainted, I don't think Sculpey looks so great on it's own. Good points and bad points, like they all have.
I’ve
been wondering what the legalities are about sculpting someone famous and
selling their likeness. I mean common sense says there has to be some
protection of freedom of speech, which is what art is. But celebrities are the
ones with the money. There is that saying; those that have the gold make the
rules. Well, I’m a rebel. I figure there must be some away around that gold for
someone like me who isn’t going to make anywhere near what they make and
certainly be no threat to their income off of similar images, or in my case;
sculpture.
My first attempt at sculpting a
famous person went rather well, but I had no plans to sell it because she is a
Hungarian actress, Andrea Osvart, and not a lot of Americans even know who she
is. The sculpture turned out pretty good. Not perfect. The clay was new to me
and too soft, but quite frankly doing a portrait sculpture was simply pushing
the envelope for me at the time. In fact it’s still hard to do, but I’m more
confident about it now.
I posted a link to the picture on
her fan site on facebook. She took a look and actually wrote me a very nice
note saying she was honored that I did that, and posted the picture on her fan
page. And to show how nice she is, she added me to her personal facebook page.
Andrea Osvart
Also on another personal note, the
angel pilot sculpture I did, since it was inspired by Yvonne Scio who was in
Tal Bachman’s music video; She’s so High, I put a picture of that up on her fan
page on facebook. She “liked” it from her personal page.
So far things have worked out pretty
well for me regarding celebrities, and yes, these two are not considered super-stars
here in the US, but it shows they weren’t ruined by success, they were very
nice. And I wasn’t making any money off of it, but I don’t think they would
care.
So what happens when you make money off
of a celebrity’s likeness? First of all you make money and second of all you
may be sued by them. I read an interesting legal paper about sports figures and
sport figure sculptures and how it has worked out in the courts. You can read the
whole thing here: http://www.willamette.edu/wucl/pdf/sportslaw/spring05/mcmillens.pdf
I’m
going to talk about the highlights of the cases in that paper.
The
basic problem always seems to be a balance between what is allowable free
speech on the part of the artist, and how that affects the right of publicity
for the celebrity. Right of publicity, as you might guess, is all that
licensing they do of their image and name. Do you have to have their permission
to make any likeness of them? From the above linked paper:
In Comedy III Prod., Inc. v. Gary Saderup, Inc.,
the California Supreme Court fashioned
Its own
balancing test to determine when a work of art outweighs a celebrity’s right of
publicity.When an artist’s skill and talent is
manifestly subordinated to the overall goal of creating a conventional portrait
of a celebrity so as to commercially exploit his or her fame, then the artist’s
right of free expression is outweighed by the right of publicity. An artist
depicting a celebrity must contribute something more than merely trivial
variation, [but must create] something recognizably his own.
This was a California case, which
would apply only to California, but could be cited as an authority in your
state, whatever that state might be. In this case an artist made t-shirts with
the Three Stooges on them from his own drawing. The court said it wasn’t
artistic enough, basically.
Cardtoons, L.C. v. Major
League Baseball Players Ass.n, 95 F.3d 959 (10th Cir. 1996).
This is a 10th
Circuit case which is above the State level, the final level before the U.S.
Supreme Court, and again can be cited as an authority in your state even if you
aren’t part of the 10th Circuit, and I forget where that is. I used
to know. I know I live in the 9th Circuit which has a reputation for
just making up crap as they go along, and sometimes, surprisingly, making a
good decision.
Anyway, in this
case a company was making trading cards ridiculing baseball players, I guess as
caricatures. The court found that the Oklahoma law protecting the right of
publicity was too protecting and that society would be deprived of
entertainment and social commentary, and the baseball players stood to benefit
very little from it.
Where this puts
us is; if you get sued, it’s up to the Judge to decide if your art is artsy
enough. And the argument that a perfect likeness takes incredible talent and
time and is the highest form of art, doesn’t count. Or it may count. Each case
is different. That argument hasn’t worked in the past, but it may in the future
with different circumstances and different judges.
My personal
opinion: I would not sculpt other people’s artwork. For instance all the comic
book heroes, at least not without permission. It’s going to be pretty hard to
say you are making art that is different in a very different way when you are
copying them. Duh. Secondly I don’t want to copy someone else’s artwork.
Creativity isn’t copying.
Sculpting a
celebrity is different. People look up to them, or admire their talent, and/or
their beauty and I don’t see what’s wrong with immortalizing that in a
sculpture. I don’t stand to make nearly what they make from their talent and
publicity. Even if I make a sculpture of say, Angelina Jolie, and I make 20 of
them and sell each one for $2,000 (similar case in that legal paper) $40,000 is
a drop in the bucket to her. She probably makes that much in 10 minutes. Quite
frankly if that caught her attention and she wanted her cut, I don’t care. It is
true I wouldn’t be making anything off of it if it weren’t for her fame. If she
demanded I stop because she thought it was a terrible sculpture, ok, it is her
likeness. I’m reasonable. That doesn’t mean everyone else is reasonable, or
that being reasonable would keep me out of court. Remember a woman sued
McDonald’s for spilling coffee on herself. Court sucks, you never know what
will happen in court, try to avoid it.
I’m going to go
see if I can sculpt Alison Krauss. She looks like a nice person.If you don't know who Alison Krauss is, here's a video, relax and take your mind off the stinking legal system.
I am not an art snob. I like what I like regardless if it’s approved by
the art snobs. By art snobs I mean those that have a preconceived notion of
what art is and what art isn’t. Why are bronze statues referred to as “fine art”
while the same thing cast in concrete or resin isn’t? The same skill in
sculpting went into all of them.
Norman Rockwell was looked down upon by the art snobs and his art wasn’t
considered fine art because he did commercial artwork. Rockwell even agreed
with them. But you know who Norman Rockwell is, you may even have a painting of
his hanging in your house, I do. Comic book art was looked down upon as sleazy
commercial artwork. Now there are galleries that specialize in selling comic
book art.
Ancient Greek potters were the lowest of the low in the Greek pecking
order. They began putting art on their pottery. At first they copied
Egyptian and Syrian art. Then they surpassed those art forms. Now the low of
the low’s art goes for millions of dollars. The art snobs eventually catch up
to the rest of us.
Now for the next great thing that the art snobs will have to accept,
someday: Comic book hero figurines. I would say this art form is on the cutting
edge of sculpture today. Bronze is so yesterday, yesteryear, yestermillenia. Move
on art snobs. Look at this.
The two videos below is about Tony Cipriano, the artist talks about how he got into sculpting commercially (funny story) and shows the process it takes to make those amazing figurines.
Inspired by Tal Bachman's music video and the actress Yvonne Scio
I am going to talk about general
design and personal technique on the human form, because that is what I sculpt
most of the time. I use clay, different kinds, and I’ll talk about the pros and
cons. There is no one best way to sculpt. You will develop your own style and
find your favorite tools over time.
Anatomy is the key to good
sculpting of the human form. Many new sculptors focus on a smooth surface. I
know I did until I realized; what good is a smooth surface when it doesn’t look
right in the first place. My first sculpture barely looked human, there were
eyes, a nose and a mouth and I thought my mistake was just being able to blend
them all together seamlessly. Wrong. There are a zillion details and they all
have to be in the right place. Thankfully clay is very forgiving, just remove
it or add it.
I find myself studying people. I
look at very specific things, the corner of their mouth, the arch of their
brow, the slope of their forehead; the details. Unless you are very talented,
you will need some photos of the human form. Don’t go looking for a picture of
a beautiful model. Those photos will be in color and have many details
airbrushed away. You need details. Black and white photos show more depth too.
What you want are anatomy pictures, or even go buy a book on anatomy. There are
such books for artists; your local craft store should have some.
For me the easiest clay to sculpt
is oil based clay. There are different kinds and different levels of hardness.
A number 2 plasticine clay is about the right hardness to do a bust. It’s hard
enough to sculpt detail but still soft enough to push around. You will find the
kind you like. What’s nice about oil based clay is that it doesn’t harden. When
learning sculpting, and even later, it’s a good idea to get away from your
sculpture, cover it up and don’t look at it for awhile. Your eyes can and will
get used to looking at flaws and accepting them as accurate. But when you leave
it and come back and see it anew, usually flaws will be glaringly obvious.
Don’t be afraid to jump around to
different details of your sculpture. Sometimes while working on an ear you may
find yourself drawn to that little flaw on the eye. I just quit on the ear and
go fix the flaw on the eye. I work all over, where I see the need. It all comes
together in the end. The end is an elusive place. Don’t declare it the end
until you are sure. Go away and come back and see if it still looks complete. Bad
sculptures are just sculptures that aren’t completed. Oil based clay needs to
have a mold made and a casting made from the mold. You can use the clay over
and over.
I learned to sculpt on air dried
clay because I could buy it locally and it’s pretty cheap. I used Amaco terra
cotta clay. It must be kept wet. I use a spray bottle and keep it wet while
working on it. When not working on it I would spray it down with a spray bottle
and cover it with a plastic bag. It slowly dries out anyway. You have a limited
amount of time you can sculpt with it. This kind of clay will have different
consistencies depending on how wet it is. When you first open the package it
should be soft and moist, it won’t hold detail very well. But the nice thing
is, when you get the general shape done, you can control the drying so that it
gets leathery, then detail is easier. I have re-constituted dried clay by
soaking broken pieces in water. It’s a mess, and takes time and effort, but you
can do it. There are other types of air dried clay and you can find reviews of
those on my blog.
Most of your sculpture can be
sculpted with your hands and fingers. When you get down to details too small
for your hands, you will need some tools. One that is probably universally used
is one that is slightly spoon shaped, and it is used for smoothing and adding.
My other favorite tool is a straight needle, and I have three different sizes
of diameter. The thickest one accidentally got slightly bent on the end and I
have found I like it that way; I can sculpt very tiny curved lines with it,
like eye lids. I also use a couple of wire loop tools. Loop tools are used for
cutting away and can be used to smooth a surface, or the edge can be used to
push clay. I use a round one and a square ended one mostly. I also like a
triangular one for making slightly undercut, well defined lines. You can buy
sets of tools at craft stores like Michaels, or order them online from a
specialty store. You will find your favorite ones to use; there is no one best
way to sculpt. Or you can even make your own tools from household items. A rotating table, or lazy susan to work on is
invaluable.
You will need to look at your
sculpture from many different angles. When sculpting a head I like to hold it
in my hands, that way I can turn it any way I want. Looking down from the top
will reveal flaws in the forehead, cheeks, and nose that you may not have
noticed when looking straight at it. You probably shouldn’t worry about
sculpting facial expressions until you’ve mastered sculpting a face. But don’t
let me define how you sculpt. We all see things differently. We all do things differently.
Don’t worry about trying to duplicate someone’s exact technique, and beware of
teachers that tell you their way of moving clay around is the only way. It may
be the only way for them, but you aren’t them. Be you, everyone else is taken
anyway.
Here is a video of still pictures taken of the process of sculpting an angel. She is about 3 feet tall. I didn't think to start taking pictures till I started sculpting, so it doesn't show the making of the armature. The armature was 1/4 inch steel rods welded together and covered with newspaper, aluminum foil and tape. I had to do some modifying of the armature, which you will see in the video. I used the foil over the paper so that when I was done I wouldn't be picking pieces of paper off my oil based clay. I was picking pieces of foil instead. Use thick foil if you do this. It wasn't bad though, not as bad as the paper alone would have been.
Some thoughts on sculpting. To be precise when sculpting the human form it's best to sculpt it nude. Get everything right. The thing is, you aren't going to actually add clothing. You are going to add folds and wrinkles where they lay on the body, and if the body isn't right, your clothes are going to look like they are laying on a deformed body. I added nipples, even though I knew they wouldn't show when finished. They were reference points. It's hard to judge how and where something should be round with no reference point on it. Some people use lines. I've tried that and my lines just get demolished. I fail to see how a lump of clay is erotic anyway. So if you are easily offended by bare clay, you might not want to watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GlU18gEdMI&feature=plcp
La Doll clay is made by Padico
and distributed by Activa, and can be found online at activaproducts.com. I recommend you check out my angel sculpture
to see what kind of sculpture I do to compare to how I talk about this product.
My first attempt with La Doll
was to make a figurine of a walking cowgirl with her raincoat blown behind her.
This is the same thing I did with the Amaco Craft Porcelain and you can read my
other review of that. It sculpts easier, for me anyway, than the Amaco clay. The
La Doll smoothes out beautifully, no lumps and the finish is smooth. When you
add a piece of clay, it blends well. The consistency is firmer than the Amaco
clay. It reminded me of soft serve ice cream with maybe just a touch of ice in
it. This is because of the fibers from the paper. They are very small but I
could feel them, or feel them tearing apart, when running a tool through it.
I could not get the La Doll into
as thin of pieces as I could with the Amaco. When spreading it thin, it ripped
apart. I could still get fairly thin pieces. The La Doll did not dry as hard as the Amaco,
but the Amaco looked plastic when dried, and the La Doll doesn’t. I have to
talk about color here because it affects the look.
I used the same technique to add
color. I used non-toxic markers. I flattened out a piece and scribbled all over
it and worked it in. The La Doll absorbed a lot of color. The Amaco dried
brighter than when wet and the La Doll dried not as bright as when wet. The
yellow for the raincoat simply disappeared with this technique. Over and over I
added color with the yellow marker, the lump stayed white. I dug up my water
color paint for my air brush and poured that in, twice. Finally I had yellow. I
couldn’t keep the yellow off my fingers. This brought me to my “I hate this
stuff, I quit.” frustration level. Then I thought about it, and the sculpture
dried.
La Doll looks good when dry. The
color came out more subdued, almost pastel.Tiny detail is possible. Even my finger prints showed up. I decided with the remaining small lump of
clay to do a small bust, and leave out color. I am happy. I liked the way it sculpted.
I liked the way it dried. There were no cracks, though it was a solid piece, I
did not use an armature. There was no distortion when it dried, as might happen
with a solid piece. However, on the colored piece that I quit on, a crack did
form. This was because I was sculpting with different colored clay and trying
to keep them separate so the colors didn’t intermix. The flesh colored tummy
drew away from the blue colored pants. I blame myself more than the clay, I
should have blended it some by smearing some flesh colored clay under the blue
colored clay.Without using color, the
white reminds me of pure white marble. This white/marble color appeals
to me much more than the plastic look of the Amaco.
This sculpture is nothing great, I know, it was just an experiment.
When La Doll is dry it can be
sanded, or moistened and added to. I carved on the bust a little to see what would
happen. Even I didn’t ruin it. (I am not a carver.) The scratchy marks I made
to hollow a cheek and make the cheek bone more pronounced, were brushed away
with a wet brush. The little bust was only 3 ½ inches high and took several
days to dry. It is stone hard though. I sculpted some hair falling over her
face like Veronica Lake, or if you’re young and know Jessica Rabbit, like that.
I left some of her hair hanging away from the body to see how strong that would
dry. It took awhile to dry but it doesn’t move anymore.
This La Doll clay was easy to
keep clean, and I have a cat, and I’m a guy; this means I may go work on my car
and then go back to sculpting. You do need to keep things clean. Even when it’s
dry, be careful. I picked up the bust after I came home from work to see how it was drying and
the dirt came off my hands and on to the sculpture. Luckily it was dry enough
that it brushed off, but beware when handling this stuff even when dry. Since
it is water based and picks up dirt even when dry, it needs to be sealed. I
haven’t done this yet but I hear that matte acrylic works best. If you want it
to be shiny use gloss. Something most people don’t think of is UV protection in
their finish. I just went to look for my can of acrylic spray but I must be
out. If I remember right acrylic is a good UV protection. It’s not that the
sculpture needs UV protection, it might yellow in the sun, I haven’t had time
to test that, but the finish itself can turn yellow in the sun if not made with
UV protection. Even lights in your house can turn it yellow over time, not as
quickly as the sun, but it will darken the finish. Don’t just spray any ol’ clear
finish you can find on your sculpture, check for UV protection, it should say
on the can. Another good finish is shellac, though it might be too shiny for
some tastes.
