John- bringing John to life in clay

John has gone through a great deal of transformation. If you remember we had just received the foam armature of John in December.  Here is some transitional photographs showing the process. This shows just a glimpse into the many, many hours of creating before approval of a sculpture. If you want to see the final results of the John Turner sculpture in clay be sure to check out the approval blog post.

First I carve the foam carving it to the right design.
Slowly I move around and down John. The foam
is covered with a foundry wax and a layer of clay.
A base coat is added and then thicker layers.

Slowly we move down the body. Working with
folds and capturing movement is the goal. Still,
there are other elements that we must add that
play a part in the scene. John's hands are pivotal.
the right is holding a brief case, and the left
the harness.  The position of these additional
elements may change the arms and the folds.
The brief case is much to heavy to put on him.
it would break his hand and arm. Putting these
elements together will take a lot of time and
consideration.

The other element that is important is
of course the dog.  We juggle trying to have the
room to work on John, and needing the
interaction with the dog. 

Off with his head! No, this is not just something from my
previous Alice project. It is something I do with all of my
sculptures. It is easier to flip his head around and see
what is needed. I'll can easily attach his head back to the body.
I'll do this many times. I also like having both printed photos
and photos on my computer. I can zoom in on these.

A visitor. My granddaughter plays with play dough and
watches tv while gamma works.