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.

Fishy Things

I have been working on my fish sculpture. I have made some progress as you can see here.


I will probably change the shape of the head some more. Bring down the forehead a little and incline it more sharply so it isn't so rounded.

I'm struggling a bit with this one. This stone already has a very specific shape and it already feels like a fish. I fear the only thing I can possibly do is screw it up. I can see how I can utilize the shape, but I'm lacking confidence. Especially with the fins. So I've decided to try to model in clay where I can go with it.


In the past when I've done this, I found that I actually like to work the clay like I work stone. Take away and not build up. I mean, I'll add clay to build up an initial chunk, and I'll add clay if I go too far while removing something, but I feel best when I'm removing the clay to reveal the form rather than just trying to build it up. Sort of like problem solving how I might actually tackle the stone. Anyway, that's what I've done above. I created a (crude) model of my stone as it currently stands, and now I'll try to figure out how to make the most of it.

By the way, while I was working with the clay the other night, I was watching a terrific program on PBS called Craft in America. There was quite a bit of wonderful work on display in all manner of styles and media. Inspiring stuff. You should catch it if you're into that sort of thing.