Playing With Clay

So I picked up a bag of clay from the art teacher at the school where I teach. I have been feeling really stressed lately and I just needed to get some of that out of my system. I have always loved to play with clay and mold things, I just never felt that I was any good at it. Anyway, I took the block of clay and just decided to go for broke. I remembered a project that some of the art classes did when I was in high school that always looked really fun; they would take a lump of clay and shape it into the profile of a face, I'm sure that it has a technical term a relief or something fancy like that, but I can't remember. Anyway, this is what I came up with as I started to sculpt out a profile. I wanted it to be a bit of a caricature, and so far I am pretty pleased with what I have. I'm sure that most people will say that I looks like me, and maybe it does. If so, I guess this is how I see myself right now. What would Freud and Jung say about that? So, this is me ... playing with clay.

stage 1

stage 2

stage 3
These first three images show the progression of the piece so far. I'm not sure if you can see it very well, but in the first picture the eye is much farther forward in the face, and a bit smaller. I didn't like the way that it looked so I scraped off the first go and worked for a few hours to get the second version, a little bigger, and more true to where it should be on an actual face. It made the brow a little heavier than I wanted, but I think that the trade-off works. I think it simply looks better now. Also, I added the goatee and the sideburns. I think that I am going to turn him into a Elvis like character with a big pompadour hairdo.


close up on nose and mouth before the goatee

during the building process for the goatee, it ended out being much larger.

First attempt at the eye

Second attempt at the eye



just after finishing the ear, I liked the way it came out.

Just the ear

Aiden was helping me out as I was working on the face. He was busy with his play dough and while I was working he tried to run the face over stating the my face "needed tire marks too!"

He is too cute!

Cheers,
Price