FIGURE SCULPTURE COURSE
with Christine Baxter

14th, 15th 16th April - Optional casting days TBC

Course details: As well as learning the fundamentals of sculpting, moulding and figurative design, you will create your very own 1/3 size cast stone figure to take away with you. All materials are included; you will have a stand, a turntable, an armature ready made, plenty of clay and some modelling tools. We will also have a model sit for us.

The aim of the course is to gain familiarity with clay as a modelling material, learn the use of traditional methods of measuring volume, shape and angles, and to achieve a likeness of the model.  It is quite intensive, and you will find it totally absorbing.  Modeling in clay from life observation is a discipline that improves your drawing skills, increases your awareness of gravity with the use of materials, develops your concepts of volume as well as helps to develop your critical aesthetic eye. I use traditional teaching skills that I learnt at Camberwell School of Art London in the early 80’s.  I was lucky to be one of the last students of my generation to benefit from a formal teaching regime that had been developed over the previous 200 years and that is sadly now not taught in UK Art Schools.

We work direct from a model, using caliper gauges and plum lines.  You will learn about the making of armatures, the limitations and possibilities of using clay and drawing in 3D with clay.  I will give demonstrations on a piece that I will produce along side the class so you can see basic techniques that you will master. The second part of the course is the mould making and casting.  This is an optional extra, some people are happy to have the piece cast for them, whilst others would like to learn this new skill so that they can cast their own pieces at home.

We will make a plaster two piece mould from your sculpture, then we shall cast ciment fondue into the mould.  Then chip off the mould revealing your finished weatherproof sculpture.  Lastly we will apply a patina.