Tutor: Hazel Reeves

Nov 15 &16

Intermediate/advanced

5 of 8 places available on autumn course

£250

About this Course:

Are your clay portraits looking staid? Or do you just want to do something completely new and challenging? This two-day workshop, with a different model each day, will enable you to exploit the expressive nature of clay. You will get expression, character, emotion and movement in your sculptures. We will use exercises, with and without clay, to build our understanding of how to inject expression into our portraits. You will sculpt a series of smaller, quick portraits (sometimes with the torso) with potentially longer-poses on the afternoon of the second day, producing under-life size portraits. This 2-day course will particularly benefit those with some experience of portrait sculpture.

Please note:  this is not the course for you if you are seeking advice on more formal portrait sculpting techniques or want to know how to model facial features in detail  (for this we suggest the 5-day Portrait Head in Clay courses).

We will cover: 

• Understand the complexity of the head and how the form, features and pose help to express character, emotion and movement/life
• Use drawing and looking to assist an expressive sculptural process
• Build up quick and expressive portrait heads (sometimes with torsos) in clay, using fingers as well as tools
• Understand a range of techniques to assist quick expressive portraiture
• Explore different methods of applying the clay to capture different effects
• Find your own way/style of capturing in clay the essence of a model, quickly

Timetable:

We will take regular breaks throughout the day for the model (and tea and coffee).

Day one 

We will initially discuss what students want from the course, followed by a short group discussion of what we understand expression in portraits to be and how to achieve it  sculpturally. We will then use exercises, including building small hand-held portraits, before moving onto small portraits on armatures, potentially extending into the torso, capturing movement and emotion. Various techniques will be used to push you beyond your sculpting comfort zone, including working at speed, carving rather than putting-on clay, and using rapid drawing exercises to assist the sculptural process.

NB: each of these sculptures needs to be documented – bring your camera – as we are likely to re-use the clay and/or armature on day 2. 

Day two 

We will continue with further exercises and sculpting under-size portraits on an armature, before potentially spending time on two longer poses (under-life-size portraits) in the afternoon. You will need to decide on the composition and scale of the portrait and help set up the pose. We will spend the last 15 minutes reflecting on the work created.

NB: you will need to decide which (if any) portraits you would like to keep. Sometimes people decide the process is more important than what they take away with them. 

What to bring:

Clay is included in the cost of the course (within reason). Wooden armatures (sometimes called a ‘bust peg’) will be provided. These belong to the studio and/or Hazel.

If you have any of the following, bring them – don’t worry if not as there will be some to share:

• Wooden and/or metal modeling tools (including hollowing-out tools)
• Wire cutter
• Water spray bottle
• Barbecue sticks
• Masking tape
• Bin liners (x2)
• Hand-held mirror
• Apron

We will also do some drawing so bring something to draw on (pad or A4 printer paper) and a drawing implement (e.g., pencil, pen, or charcoal).