Tracey Tutt

Finally!

At last I found some Life Sculpture sessions I could attend, I have been constantly on the look out for a chance to do some more life sculpture.

I absolutely loved it when I stumbled across the classes at the now closed Wensum Lodge 3 years ago, so I did wonder whether it had been a flash in the pan that I made some of the best things I have ever created in Clay so I was slightly anxious at the start of the first Saturday session at MudHub Pottery at Carrow House.

We started with some 5-10 minute clay sketches which was something I had definitely never done, but we all launched into it with a sense of fun.

The tutor, Andrea, told us all it was only to loosen up, so after looking at what each other had made, we then put them to one side and started again.

The rest of the day was over to us and how we wanted to work, the six of us all had our own easels and the model was rotated fairly regularly, but we could move round as well if we wanted to.

We were all using the Crank clay which is a very good choice for sculpture like this, Andrea talked through the benefits and also told us that if we wanted to we could use a finer clay over the top for a smoother look, as long as it was compatible with the crank.

I really like the gritty texture, not having to be too fussy, and it helps loosen up my style so I can’t get too involved with the surface texture, it’s more about emotion and feel for the posture.

After a short lunch break and with approximately 2 hours left of our all day session (10-4) I decided I would call this figure done and try a faster second iteration.

I chose to include the chair this time around so I could get both feet in, and therefore the shape and limbs would make a bit more sense, so started with a couple of pinchpots laid one upside down on another to represent the bucket chair.

I worked fast and felt like as I already had one figure I was happy with, this second one could be a much more relaxed, but fluid piece.

I scratched in the grooves of my chair trying to define a textural difference between the model and chair and really like the attitude of the stance with my second piece, I was so glad that I did a second sculpt and didn’t get too bogged down in the minutiae of detail.

When Andrea announced that time was up, I think that both myself and the other attendee’s suddenly realised how very tiring being focussed can be for hours on end as it’s quite intense. Just the last process to do before all of our lovely sculptures were left to dry, a little bit of hollowing, removing paper formers and pushing holes all the way through the thicker bits, in hope of successful firings where no bits exploded off!

Just two weeks later and I was back at it, they hope to run them once a month going forwards and I want to be there for every single one, if possible.

At the start of the second session, some of the comments from the previous session stuck in my head commenting on my faces/heads in that they were really good, very kind I thought, let’s really push that with this one and just do a bust sculpt… at least as the first one.

I really enjoyed just concentrating on the head form, faces are really tricky, I know this from trying to model faces previously in all sorts of different ways for/with my students at work. It seems so easy, but getting it to look right from ALL angles is the hardest thing. You think the nose looks good from the side then turn it round to find it nowhere near right from the front 😀

I was very pleased with how this turned out, again I didn’t want to smooth it down and lose the textural quality that I love so much with the crank clay, so decided to try a full figure sculpture, again for the last couple of hours, whilst the bust dried a little before attempting to remove it’s paper former.

I liked creating a chair so the figure wasn’t just floating in space, even though it makes all the more challenging to successfully sculpt, but then quickly added on the limbs to get the right feel for the pose, and keep fluidity and the feeling of realism.

My pieces may not be perfect, but they are ‘right’ the attitude sits well, they have weight to the limbs and the negative and positive spacing just works. I want the finish to be a little rough, I would like to abstract the shapes even more, but for now, I am happy to be able to participate and create some more lovely Life Sculptures.