Sunday, September 25, 2011

Refining Leaves and Branches

Work continues on the Tree of Life commission.

This is how the sculpture looked at the end of last week.

This is how it looks at the end of this week. It is hard to tell the difference at a glance. As the sculpture gets refined, the gains will be ever more subtle.

This is how the clay looked when it was roughly applied over the armature.

The work this week focused on making improvements to the branches and leaves. The forms were refined and texture applied to the entire surface.

About mid week, I had a visit from Steve McMillen, who is a biologist for the State of Kentucky. Steve, Meg and myself gathered leaves from around the studio and discussed the attributes of real leaves and possible treatments of the clay leaves.

Thursday, I did some consulting work for Ted Rosky (right side of the photograph), who wanted to install a recently acquired 4,400 lb. Jade Tiger sculpture. Ted Rosky owns the original stone "Ely" (in foreground) that is one of Meg's best stone sculptures.

A few feet over from Meg's elephant is this detail 'fragment' of Frederick Hart's "Ex Nihilo". The complete sculpture of "Ex Nihilo" is on the western facade of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. and is, in my opinion, the best sculpture in the United States.

While in town, we picked up our sculptures that were in the Kaviar Gallery monument show. Meg took this photo inside Craig Kaviar's blacksmith studio.

Other news includes the fact that our studio now has indoor plumbing!

This horse drawn caravan went down the road past our studio. (photos copyright Meg White)

No comments: