A Head Start(ed)

I have just started a clay portrait head of my young friend. After three hours I am very pleased by the progress made and am looking forward to finishing it by the weekend. 

The grey modeling clay I got from Tiranti's has been a little too wet to handle and had a stickiness to it. Never the less, I am pleased by progress so far and of the keen interest shown by my young sitter in the sculptural process. 

Clay Modelling Tools – Basic Kit

Found these super basic starter tool sets from Great Art.   They are an online company and have some great art equipment. We worth checking out GreatArt.co.uk

It has just the basic tools which are great as a base to add to. I must say my best sculpture tools are pilched from my kitchen drawer. 

Tool kit for £9.99.

Tool Kit for £5.30

  

This entry was posted in Sculpture on March 25, 2014.

Goodbye Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London

                                           

So pleased that I exhibited at 54 The Gallery, Shepherds Market last week. 10 -15 Feb 2014.

My exhibition gave me a great focus  to push myself, do new work and also revaluate my direction. 

Shepherd Market is such a lovely friendly place and is considered the last little village in London. It is full of amazing and reasonable places to eat and lovely little shops. I really enjoyed the Jordanian meal we had with friends after a Private View.

Alas the weather had been horrendous. It had held me up completing sculpture before the exhibition and affected my visitor numbers during it. 

A number of people I invited to the private view were directly effected by flooding and I was amazed that people came from Cambridge and Leicester despite danger and travel disruption. You know it's bad when my friend Marguerite was evacuated from her houseboat, due to the flood, and was having to stay with friends. Imagine how pleased I was that she made time to see me in the midst of her distressing circumstances. 

I learned so much during the week and have a much clearer idea of what to do next. Certianly I will not delegate printing again because this was the area which cost the most, took most time and was least successful. In future I will do it all myself. 

I was flattered that strangers were so interested and supportive of my efforts. A new Algerian friend I made there gave me a Youth stone from the Yeman and I was so thrilled. As a child I lived in that region and love stone and minerals. Coincidentaly a piece of red velvet I treasure, and remember  buying when I was a child in Aden, I used in the show. 

My work was figurative in the exhibition but I felt energised by Shepherds Market to follow my heart and develop my more abstract design work in glass and start  carving stone again. 

CASTING - Waste Mould

Here are images of making a Waste Mould in plaster of the original clay portrait sculpture. I will eventually fill the mould with bronze resin 

    

So Behind - Trying To Get Ahead

I decided to sculpt a clay portrait of a friend of mine who i have drawn several times. As I have had the opportunity of exhibiting, at 54 Sheperds Market in London 10- 16 Febuary,  I thought another portrat study would be a great addition but it does rather add to the work load. This evening I started the first stage for making a plaster mould and hope that it will be successful. I have what seems like a mountain of work to cast and finish and wonder if I will ever get it all done! 

Pip and Squeak - Well oiled for Christmas

So pleased to have finished the oil painting of dogs to be given as a present for Christmas. The dogs are such characters, the little one especially.  
If was fairly impossible to keep them together so I had to do studies of them separately and make up a composition. It was difficult because they are such different sizes but the little one has the bigger personality. 

Usually the little one wears her ears flat but the owner liked them worn like a funny bat creature. I must say it does look better for the composition.

Drawing~Proteus Creation Space

I really must get into the habit of blogging more regularly. 
At present I am engrossed in getting work together for my forthcoming exhibition in February at 54 The Gallery in London. 
Today I took a break and drew at Proteus Creation Space in Basingstoke which was having a Christmas Event . 
Proteus is a theatre company which was formally based at Queen Mary's College where I once taught. Now they have taken over Fairfields Art Centre and are making it into an exciting and vibrant centre.