Drawing and Clay III

In the next phase, Stone creates rough versions of the major body parts, making sure they’re all in proportion to one another.

“At this point, you’re building the major relationships,” says Jesus. “You need to establish the head versus the shoulders versus the hips.”

To hear Jesus say it, creating a head that fits right on the shoulders and doesn’t look odd next to the arms involves a lot of trial and error. The moment the sculptor adjusts the thigh so it looks right next to the hips, he or she discovers that those two pieces are now out of proportion with the shoulders and the head. Then, more clay has to go on or come off.

One way to speed up the process is to always work on the statue as a whole. “In painting class, they teach you to address everything in your painting in one sitting,” says Jesus. “The same thing is true with sculpture. You want to address every problem you have every time you work on it.”