The Snails

My final project is to create a half human sculpture, which would be put in the library of the institute.

 

The idea of the project is 'knowledge'. Like an old saying, we are standing on the shoulders of giants', knowledge is built by history; like trees, which grow with long time history. The older they are, the larger they are; similarly, the more we read and learn, the more knowledge that we gain. This project is to create a half-human sculpture, which is mixed with tree. There would be tree stuck on the head and books underneath the human sculpture, to show the idea of project.

 

Learning to sculpt human face is one of my dreams. So I decided to do a half-human sculpture as my final project in ceramic lecture. I have did some research on human sculpture before working on the project; I read some books about sculpting human face and watched few YouTube videos on demonstrating the way to sculpt human. I thought I had prepared much for this project. But when I started to make it, I realized that it is much harder than I thought it was.

 

During the making process, it is found out that I had put the wrong tool inside the clay to prevent the body from falling; that is the reason why I accidentally made it too big. The bigger the work is, the more works I have to handle. Apart from this, sculpting the human face is another big challenge to me. Since Asian face is a bit too flat, which is difficult for me to work on it. Hence, I decided to sculpt a western face. However, another problem appeared; I did not have a model for me to touch and feel the actual bone structure of western faces. In order to solve this problem, I asked for my French teacher's help. I took some photos of her face in various directions so that I could have a clear idea while working. However, without feeling the actual face by hands, it was still hard for me to sculpt a real head.

 

Sculpting a human head is a difficult job to me. There are lots of things required to pay attention while making the head; for instance, the proportion of the five sense organs, the symmetry of the face, the way it looks in different directions. Again, sculpting head required time to practice and learn. Although I cannot make a perfect head sculpture, this valuable experience inspires me to appreciate the human sculpture, and take initiative to learn the way of sculpting human face.

 

When I finished working on the head and books, I put them on the shelf for dry. One of the biggest trees stuck accidentally broke and fell into four pieces, which was caused by the poor structure of the particular stuck after analyzing. I was shocked and felt very upset. But this project still had long way to go; therefore, I made another tree stuck; hopefully it can perfectly fit into the original place after firing, so that I can stick it back after the final firing.

 

I was confronted with tons of difficulties due to lack of experience. But I have tried my best to solve the obstacles that I met. Generally specking, I am quite satisfied with my final project; but surly there are rooms to improve.