Albert Einstein Sculpture

Hi again!

So I am pretty excited to show everyone this piece! I sculpted a head!!! Very cool! Our assignment was to find a figure you had an interest in! I decided to sculpt Albert Einstein! What we had to do was start with an armature ...(I made this out of newspaper, tape, and covered it with a plastic bag) and then build from that. 

I had some difficulty getting started, especially with creating a realistic looking nose....so I took it to my sketch book and sketched out skulls & facial features to get proper proportion and to understand the structure of a skull. After that I went back to my clay and began sculpting my nose, as well as adding eye sockets & creating cheek bones.

Once I built up the face to my liking, I began with the detail, such as the eyebrows and the moustache (adding the lip first then building off of it). I scored & slipped the parts where they were going (as seen in the 1st image below) & then placed the pieces on. (to add texture to the eyebrows & moustache I carved away pieces of the clay with a pencil like tool...you could use a tooth pick if you did not have proper clay tools on hand) 

                       

when I created the eyes I found that was difficult as well, as the eyeball itself is actually larger then we see it (no pun intended) I had to push in on the clay and create an eye socket (I started this from the beginning to help with the facial structure.) Next I created 1 ball and cut it in half to make both eyeballs (that way they are proportionate to one another) I then scored & slipped once again both the eye ball and socket and placed it in there, pushing down the front part of the eye first to create a smooth look, then pressing the sides down to properly attach the eyeball. Once I was satisfied with how it looked I created an upper lid and made the lower lid more recognisable. To create the detail in the eye I used a knife to draw a circle in the eye and a pencil to create the pupil.  

After I was finished with the eyeballs I started on the ear, that was very difficult to sculpt proportionality, I was creating it to big every time....Once I got that sorted I moved on to the hair...again scoring and slipping all the clay onto his head. Once moulded the way I wanted it, I went through and added detail in the hair, as well as refined the details in his wrinkles on his face, as well as built a little bit of his neck out. (as seen in the completed image below)

Over all I enjoyed completing this project! (though it did however freak me out sometimes) Now I am waiting for it to be fired (turning the clay white) so I can paint it to look lifelike! I will create another post with the final outcome!