Cats & Busts (for classes)

Best Friend's portrait 

Even though it's fairly far outside what I normally do, I decided to sculpt some cats this year. 

the protrait nearly completed, with most of the texture in place

Partly, I chose to sculpt something because my students were sculpting solid forms on armatures during my hand-building class this winter and I wanted to create some video demos showing some techniques for creating more dynamic textures.

early in the process the focus is on getting the proportions right

Around this time, we were also having a conversation among the art faculty about making portraits of all of us as cats, though the cats I made were just cats, not art faculty as cats. Maybe later.

I used photos of our cats from various angles to check the positions, proportions, and anatomy

As long as I was creating a solid form for the texture, I figured I'd create some videos of the solid building process for my students. 

by printing out the picture, I was able to compare the angles of the sculpture to the image

I already have a set of videos of how to sculpt a head, but my students have done this solid portrait project for many years now with those videos, I know what sorts of things are missing or could be improved in the demos. I'd really like to make videos showing all sorts of portrait forms (people, animals, full-bodies, busts only) and helping with the kinds of issues students typically run into, but making all those videos as demos takes a lot of time.

after building up the basic shape, I cut away material to make the chest area look fluffy

For the first cat I made, I used a bunch of pictures of my current cats for the pose, but modeled the fur after our previous cat who had a lot softer and flufflier fur. 

I used a lot of different tools to create a variety of textures

I tried to capture, in several videos, a demonstration of how to judge the angles of the sculpture compared to the photos, how to make significant adjusments, etc. I haven't uploaded the videos yet, even though its been nearly 6 months, but I didn't have any handbuilders in spring, so there was not rush.

the fluff on the back is different fromthe front fluff

After the first cat, which was more effort to make because I was also setting up the camera and narrating my process, I made another just for fun. The second one isn't as interesting to look at, because I tried to replicate the shorter fur of the current cats, but I captured a more interesting position. However, what I didn't do was take pictures of the process (or, apparently, the finished sculpture).

the short haired cat (and reference image) in progress

After the second cat, I started wondering how different the process would be if I used coil building methods, instead of solid building. I always tell my students that solid buildin allows them to make more immediate adjustments to proportions and position to create a more convincing portrait of an animal or person, but was this even true? 

the coil-built cat (and his awkward legs)

So I used coil building techniques to sculpt a cat. Building up the basic shape went fairly well, but I truly wasn't able to make adjusments that needed to be made. The front legs were too wide, but I couldn't change them too much without losing the structure and support of the whole body. I ended up with a hole between the front and back legs.

all the spheres were wheel thrown

I ended up covering up the coil-built cat with thrown spheres. I liked the idea of the bubble cat, and I'd like to explore it again sometime, but I ran out of energy or time to complete it, which in combination with the fact that the cat's base form wasn't great, let me to abandon the project. 

eyeless bust for use as a mask display

At the end of Spring, students in my first ever 3D Design class left me with three different masks/wearable artworks. One ended up displayed on the solid portrait I made years ago for the solid building demo for my hand-building class, but the others have nothing to hold them up. I figured the easiest option was for me to just make a few simple portrait heads to display the masks on. 

two heads and a cat waiting for firing and glazing in my studio

I figure these busts don't need to look perfect, since they'll be covered with masks made by students. I was feeling pretty good about making two of these in June, but the other day I was in a shop that had CPAP masks displayed on a series of mass produced heads and I realized that my solution was more fun, but probably not literally easier or cheaper than buying something.