Heavy in Your Arms

I managed to get Florence home. It was a very tense 5 minutes rolling her from the sculpture class room, along the side walk, across the street and into the parking garage which charges an ungodly $32 to park. It was the nearest garage though, and I decided it was worth it to park closer rather than to park a few more blocks away for $12 and perhaps have the cart catch on something and topple over.

Over the break (Dec 22 - Feb 3) I'll be refining the surface, and when Spring semester starts, the mold making process will begin, and my chronicles of Sculpting Florence will continue.

Sometimes I Feel Like Throwing My Hands Up in the Air

Spent a 7 hour session mostly on hands because when the clay gets too warm from being handled, you have to stop (or work on another part of the sculpture) until it cools off. Still some softening and smoothing to do, but next week is the final week of the semester, so Florence will be coming home.

You've Got the Love

90 Hours in.
I sculpted some cleaner forms for the dress train, finished the hair, and filled in the obvious dents in the face. I also started blocking in the hands. I think I might be done next week, but I'm not going to count on it.

All This, and Heaven Too

It was a scary day of sculpture. The face was just not getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. Because so much of sculpture depends on the accuracy of what is surrounding it, I was fighting an uphill battle trying to make even what was already surrounded by unevenness and losing accuracy in simple position on the face. (Like an eye drifting too close to the nose for example, make the other eye even, and now they're both too close, and make the jaw look freakishly large.) I knew something desperate would have to be done, but I still had a small internal shriek of horror when it was back to square 1...
  

Back to blocking it out...

After hours and hours of fiddling with bits of clay the size of salt grains, it begins to take form and it was all worth it.

85 hours so far, 3 weeks to go.

All that remains are the hands, foot, and inside of the dress which I'm told I'll need a hair dryer to spot-warm the clay.