Thursday, October 31, 2013

#70 Waiting, relief

Waiting, 20"x16", bonded sand and oxides

This relief was supposed to have been finished a long time ago to go just outside of Jessica's massage room at a local day spa. It's the very first casting using bonded sand and oxides that I am satisfied with and I will use this casting as a reference point for casting other reliefs.

So, today while talking with my studio mate about reliefs in general, we discussed how solving some problems in relief can sometimes be solved through admiring and studying figure paintings. For example, how to crop and leave an area unfinished can be very tricky to pull off, but if painters can pull it off than so it can be done on a relief sculpture. I sometimes don't like to include the entire figure in my relief sculptures and the latest relief "Glancing" (post #67) was one of most difficult ones in making the cropped leg look natural. After agonizing over it over the last several days, I finally just slapped some clay around the area of the cropped leg and left it. This was done mostly out of frustration but after letting it sit for a bit it started making sense.