I’m confident the answer to the initial question is “yes”, but in my little corner of the world I’ve never met a sculptor - no students, no teachers, no amateurs or professionals - and I don’t recall hearing about significant sculptures being erected anywhere in the last few decades.
Sculpting fascinates me, but I’m totally ignorant of how it works. If you’re a sculptor -
- when/how did you start? Do you start with clay and pottery?
- How do you “practice”? Play-doh? Gotta imagine it’s different based on your preferred medium?
- do artists still use marble? Seems like it’d be insanely expensive & one mistake screws the whole thing up
People still sculpt. Go look up Bobby Fingers on YouTube to get an idea of what sculpting looks like.
There are a variety of clays. From what I hear, most sculptors use some form of air-dry, not firing clay like pottery would use.
Nobody ever sculpted in marble. You would sculpt in clay, make a plaster mold, fine-tune the design, then meticulously transfer it to marble.
I mostly agree, but saying nobody ever sculpted in marble is a bit like saying nobody ever painted with oil paint because most of the most well known oil paintings were done according to sketches made with charcoal or pencil.
The finished sculpture is made of marble, and thus it was sculpted in marble. Not at first perhaps, but eventually
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
Of course there are still sculptors around! Like most art sculptures have gotten more abstract tho. Visit any museum of modern Art and you are sure to find some!
Marble and the like are of course incredibly expensive, and for that reason most people stick to more affordable options like wood or ice. Or do additive sculpting with clay/plaster, welding or something like that. If you really want to work with stone you might want to apprentice with a stonemason.
How did I start? Took a pocketknife in my hand and started whittling. The foundations of working in a subtractive manner are largely independent of material.
Although it’s been sporadic for him as he is no professional, my dad has always sculpted as his creative outlet. His best work being from the time period after we lost my mom. His chosen medium are various woods, but when I had an interest myself, he would show me carving techniques in soap bars and create initial sculpture(s) in clay before attempting to remove material on the final workpiece. I only made a couple things in wood, but I got more into charcoal drawing and music and didn’t explore the third dimension much more (until I got into modeling on the computer for practical/machining purposes). I imagine CAD design and 3d modeling programs likely had an impact on the interest in physical sculpture in general.
Go visit Bali. In the town of Ubud, there is a whole street of people carving and sculpting right out in the open. You can just walk down the street and watch really great art being created.
That sounds awesome.
In addition to the stone/clay based works that you might be thinking of, I find certain metalworking sculptures to be interesting, too. Alexander Calder made a bunch of red steel sculptures, almost architectural art, in addition to things like dynamic mobiles. Louise Bourgeois’s “Maman” is an interesting one, too.
There are small metal sculptures, too. From little trinkets made from wire, to welded metal parts, to elaborate chandeliers, these all involve artistic creativity in manipulating materials in a three dimensional space, and it’s a skillset that I admire and respect (and do not have any, myself).
Cnotbush streams himself sculpting clay figures and statues daily on twitch
Ace of Clay, Dr Garuda, Art Chong, North of the Border, Sculpture Geek, etc all post sculpting vids on YouTube.
Some use a polymer clay you bake to harden, some use plasticine based clay that never dries. Depends on the artists preference and needs.
When I was in high school - ages ago - one of the substitute teachers of my art class was sanding/polishing their marble bust they were working on. It was neat to see the process but it’s really just a lot of wet sanding once past large removal / chipping.
If you’re interested in smaller scale sculpting, it’d be remiss of me not to direct you to The Crafsman Steady Craftin’
I discovered I could sculpt a couple years ago, which was revolutionary for me because I’ve been trying to draw my entire life but disabilities have always made it extremely difficult. But I can just sculpt without really even thinking about it! Form is so much easier to grasp (no pun intended) than image.
I love working with Blender’s sculpting tools, which is where I discovered sculpting. Digital sculpture has a LOT going for it and I haven’t done a lot with physical media, but the stuff I’ve done has been fun and not hampered by my disabilities either.
Hey jerkface! I keep meaning to dive further into Blender sculpting. I like tinkering with Python too & sounds like the two pair well.
It’s so much fun!! You have to “retopologize” scuplts if you want to do anything more than static renders, which is a whole different skill, but if all you want is something you can print or render, I think that real world sculpting skills would transfer very well and be sufficient.
