When The Workshop Is Over

When the last person left the workshop at the Creative Arts Center, all I could think about was locking up, blowing the clay dust out of my nose and quenching my very dry throat with a glass of wine. I was exhausted.

In this workshop, we sculpted in clay from a live model. It's kind of like a figure drawing class except working in clay instead of charcoal and paper.

Because this was a free workshop, the participants felt that they had nothing to lose by take a chance on something new, which was the whole idea behind offering the workshop, although I was hoping it would draw a bigger crown from outside the CAC umbrella.

Here is the class room break down: 10 people signed up for the workshop, 2 of which didn't make it to class. Of the 8 attendees, 6 people had taken other classes at CAC, but no one had ever taken a figure sculpting class before. 6 had never worked from a live model, 6 had never worked with clay in any form, and 1 person was surprised to see a nude person standing in the middle of the room.

We worked from the same pose for the whole 3 hours. I was really happy to see how each person kept working and reworking their sculpture, dramatically changing it to refine the form as they began to really see what was in front of them.

Seeing, THAT is the first step to working from the figure. Seeing what you are really seeing and not working from what you think you know. It's hard, and it takes work and concentration to override your brains' constant insistence that it knows all the answers.