1.1 Introduction & course overview
Hello and welcome to Strong Foundations. In this section, I introduce myself and provide an overview of the complete course. The aim of Strong Foundations is to provide you with the knowledge you need to sculpt a portrait from start to finish, and to understand the anatomical structure of the head. By taking the time to create a solid structure, you will end up with an accurate foundation on which to build your likeness. I have designed the course so that you can either sculpt your own model or sculpt our model using the provided reference measurements and photographs. Each section includes a video and downloadable notes to help you study in your own time.
1.1 Introduction and course overview: Resources
10.1 Applying clay for a smooth finish
When sculpting a highly finished, smooth/skin-surfaced portrait, it is best to apply the clay in a densely-packed way. By this, I mean by either smearing it on, or really pressing in, when you are building up the fullnesses. As I mentioned in the last section, it doesn’t work so well to build up millions of little pea shapes, if you are only eventually going to smooth out the surface anyway. It just means that there are lots of little air pockets within the clay, and weaknesses in the structure which will be hard to smooth out when you are trying to achieve subtle curves, and dink-free forms.
The working process is exactly the same as with a more sketchy finish. Remember to always compare your sculpture to the model whilst standing back to the line you have marked on the floor, and make any decisions from this distance away.
10.1 How to apply clay: Resources
Achieving a good likeness in portrait sculpture requires getting the foundations right.
Amelia Rowcroft shares her method for creating a clay likeness from life or a photographic sitting with a model. The course will take you through the whole process of sculpting a portrait to a very high finish, with an emphasis on getting the anatomical structure correct at the beginning. This is key to achieving a likeness. Amelia will show you how to train your eye to see objectively, so you can learn to trust your own judgement.
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Demonstration videos, downloadable notes and a full set of reference.
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You will begin by understanding how to see your model’s bone structure and blocking this out in clay.
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You will then build onto this skull-like form the big shapes of the face.
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Once you have the whole face blocked out, you can begin looking for smaller shapes, before adding final detail and completing your portrait to a high level of finish.
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Full access to the course only £199.99!