Fishy Things II

I'm sure you've been waiting for this with bated breath: more progress photos.

After working that clay into a form roughly like the stone, I proceeded to carve out something similar to what I have in mind for the final sculpture. This isn't exactly what I'm going for, but it is close enough. I seem to be drawn to the more stylized renderings. I don't know if it is because of time constaints or if it is just what I'm interested in. Probably both.


You'll notice the little blobs of my quick attempts at suggesting water plants on the sides of the fish. I'm thinking about doing that for two reasons. One, I want a solid base for the sculpture to stand up. (This may not be a big deal as the sculpture forms a pretty solid three point stand they way it curves.) Two, I'm a little worried about making the sculpture too thin towards the back end. I'm still pretty new at this stuff. So, we'll see what happens.


And in case you doubt my working method with the clay. Here's a picture of the fish along side all the clay that I removed in the process.


By the way, the clay I used above is a firm Klean Klay. It's the same clay I used while making the model for my bronze bas-relief. I pick this stuff up from Sculpture Depot since it's a short drive away.

The nice thing about this clay is you can work it easily, but it holds form very well. The down side is that it doesn't harden nor can you "bake" it in any fashion. I have used sculpey in the past, and I may return to it in the future. I mean, the Klean Klay models I've made hold up fine, but if you want to keep the model around for reference, like I do, and not simply make a mold or something out of it, you probably want a more durable form.

Anyway, after making the clay model, I of course worked on the stone.




I've just noticed that I may have been too close to the sculptures when I took the photos. They appear flatter in the images than the do in life. In my humble opinion, the fish form is really taking shape. It has a very pleasing curve at this point. I'm hoping to be able to keep that curve and accentuate it on the concave side. I'm also hoping to be able to accentuate it with a few other touches as I go.

I'm struggling a bit on the concave side as the grinder may not be the best tool to work on that side. In fact, the entire sculpture may not be ideal for just the grinder. I guess I'll see as I go.