Steven Larson's Blog » Sculptures

Surfboard Sculpting

Larson — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:37:37 +0000

The one part of the Surfer Girl sculpture I did not think of was the girl’s surfboard. I had seen little trinket surfboard all along the Venice boardwalk and thought I would buy one of those to use as a prop. But when it came up to figuring the size of the board, finding a 20″ x 7″ trinket surfboard was no where to be found.

Looks like I was going to have to sculpt the surfboard. Using the 1/8 armature wire I created the outline, and 1/16 armature wire to brace the center. Then took thin steel wire to weave a mesh for the rest of the openings.

I heated the clay till it was almost a muddy liquid and then spread like butter within the structure. Which worked great. Till I picked it after the clay harden — it was going to be way too heavy to be supported over her head.

I then decided to take out the clay from the mesh, which ended up being quite hard, and replacing it with aluminum foil to give it it’s form. After which I again heated the clay up almost to it’s melting point and spread the clay over the aluminum foil.

So far the surfboard has turned out to be the hardest part of this sculpture so far.

Gloomy May Day

Larson — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:55:41 +0000

During the extremely gloomy May day which I had the day off I sent off and really blocked out the rest of the Surfer girl and came up with dimensions for the surf board. After finding the body of the sculpture rather loss because I did not go with the waist side support. I felt I needed to attach the other leg to the base wood. So I took a 3″ screw and used it to bolt down the other leg. it should work.

Surfer Girl Sculpture Begins

Larson — Sun, 18 May 2008 07:39:07 +0000

On Thursday May 15th I stopped off at Home Depot to pick up supplies to the base of the new sculpture project “Surfer Girl“. A block of wood, sandpaper, black paint, paint brushes, and Denatured Alcohol. Friday I sanded down the wood and painted it black, wired up the armature. Then today I attached the armature to a rod coming up from the wood base (This will be the sculpture’s support, not the galvanized steel tubes like the ones I did in class). Began to add crude primary shapes with clay.

Surfer Girl Reference Photos

Larson — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:50:52 +0000

Took photos of Margeau Bull today in reference of the Pussycat Surfer Girl picture on the wall at the bar Nikki’s. Which will be my next sculpture project.

Final Sculpture Class

Larson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:51:53 +0000

The tenth and final class with John Brown was more of a one on one with all the students. It was really fun to walk into class today and see most of the sculptures coming together and becoming more like art. When John got around to me, the excitement I had from all the students checking out my piece had subsided knowing it did have some major faults. John really didn’t have to say much. He said it was nice, and he could tell that I put a lot of work into it, but it didn’t have enough… Then he pointed over to a fellow classmate’s sculpture – the very talented Jessica Dru’s piece – I finished his sentence by saying ‘energy’. He wasn’t trying to put me down I could tell, because he did say he was very impressed by the size of my project and the fact that I completed it in the short amount of time of the class. He complemented me on my secondary and tertiary form, But stressed that I really needed to simply work on my basic form and take charge of the clay. Which I did agree , and thanked him for being so honest, and giving me a push to strive harder. I now look at this piece as a major stepping stone – as I learned quite a bit during these past 10 weeks and will put those lessons into my future sculptures.

I can’t stress how much I learned in this class, if you are interested in sculpting I advise you to go check out John’s training videos. If of course you can not attend his class.

Tertiary Form

Larson — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:36:40 +0000

In the ninth class with John Brown, which was suppose to be about creating tertiary form to your sculptures – and he did cover that topic and showed use how to use some tools. Including part of a dog brush how to create wrinkles, skin texture, pores, and veins. But the most enjoyable part of the class was the class discussion on the entertainment industry. John told us some of his war stories, and being who he is bumped heads with a number of people. Overall myself and the classmates agreed that you pretty much have to experience the bad to get to the good in life.

Also I ran into Jessica the very talented girl from Monday’s class and she showed me her sculpture up to now and, Wow, she is doing a great job. She added a Mardi Gras mask with feathers to it and it really is looking good. Most of the class including John gave me praise for what I had achieved so far with my mammoth piece, but it still needs lots of love to get it where I want it.

John brought up that he hasn’t really helped me – one on one – during this class and that it was all me that created this. But I had to point out that it was the whole class experience that got me motivated to get started and finish this piece. being around other creative people striving for the same goal is a good environment for me.

Solvent Finish

Larson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:26:39 +0000

The eighth class with John Brown dealt with using solvents on the clay. His lecture went over three, odorless Turpenoid, Rubbing Alcohol and water. Obviously the Turpenoid cuts into the clay more, then the Alcohol which comes in percentages. Then water is great for polishing the clay. He demonstrated using a brush to smooth out the clay. To give it an almost skin look, using little bits of clay to give it a little bit of form. Then using a softer brush for another softer pass. Now I use cotton-balls and Q-tips to really give the clay a almost glass finish. The solvents will dull the clay, but as soon as you take the alcohol torch to the clay to warm it up the glossy look returns.

If anyone stumbles upon this I would very much recommend getting John Brown’s DVD’s. He is a really good instructor when it comes to breaking down what you need to do to create a clay figure. If you are in the Los Angeles area I would definitely recommend attending his 10 week class, if you are interested in learning how to sculpt or model clay. It is worth the money.

I am desperately trying to get this sculpture complete and finished by the time the class is over. I still need to work on her hair, her clothing — oh yea and her face and the tiger’s face too. Create the fur and stripes on the tiger. Wire up the chain and fine tune the hands and feet.

Heads Up

Larson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:08:57 +0000

On the seventh class with John Brown, he went over creating the head. Which is quite complex, though of course he made it look easy. Here our some personal notes for me for any future sculptures I do. Create skull shape noting how lower the jaw is to the back of the skull. That the ears are right offset to the skull’s center line, and the the top of the ears are level with the eyes. Note the profile view of the flesh, and how deep the eyes are receded into the nose bridge and tapered back on the side. The triangle between the eyes and nose bridge. the upper lip being further out the the bottom lip. The “W” under the lower lip creating the chin.

George B. Bridgeman’s Illustrations

Last week John cancelled class, so I decided to move on to the face with out his instructions: (Pics below)

After this lesson I totally began to redo the face of the Safari girl. Sitting in on the class has really proven to be a positive experience. I am getting back some really good critical feedback. That is really pushing me to strive a little harder. One classmate pointed out that my tiger looked like a wolf because the nose was too long. Another pointed out the eyes looked ’sad’ not intense like a tiger, even Rachel came over and started pointing out things in the tiger’s face that could improve it. Which I really appreciated. That kind of feedback is great.

Give Him a Hand

Larson — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:26:04 +0000

The sixth class of John Brown’s dealt with ‘hands’. How they are the same as modeling any other part of the body, but you do need to pay attention to the multitude of curves the hands have. After that he pulled out fellow classmate Chris’ sculpture out to do a demo to remind us not to forget our armature maps we made at the beginning of the class. All the lines that Chris drew on his armature map of Hell Boy, the character he was modeling, were there –but not on his sculpture. This is very true, I find when I get into the ‘zone’ and start paying attention to my reference material I begin to see my mistakes that I have been modeling. Over the weekend I ended up drilling holes in the sculpture of the tiger and hallowing out most of the clay and replacing it with foil. One it was getting too heavy, and two I was running out of clay. I spent time modeling the Safari girl (Megan) as I got out of work early and had time to work on it before class. No Rachel today in class and I have to say it made the class quite a bit more boring. I also had fellow classmate Leigh do some hand modeling for me, because she had the smallest hands in the class. I don’t want to fall into the female monster hand syndrome I went through on my last sculpture. I also took pictures of Jessica’s sculpture from Monday’s class as I really like her style. she models like John does with very pronounced lines, almost edgy like. Where I always find a need to smooth out my curves. All these photos are in my Flickr account.

a Model Weekend

Larson — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:06:18 +0000

Sculpting and modeling clay all weekend. It looked all wrong and ended up rearranging the tiger’s head and all four legs, still having a harder time making it ‘look’ exactly like a tiger.