Worlds Smallest Sculpture

I saw this guy on the news yesterday, working on sculpture that fits inside the eye of a needle. The English artist Willard Wigan works in-between heartbeats so that he doesn't destroy the piece he is creating. He uses rice or grains of sand and a surgical blade to create his "micro sculpture".

Artists are usually trying to get attention by going MASSIVE, so it's good to see some small art getting attention too, even if it is ridiculously small art. They're so small that he uses the hair from flies as a paint brush to decorate them!

There has been smaller sculptures created, but they were made with lasers. In 2001 Japanese scientists made a tiny sculpture of a bull that measured 10 micrometers by seven (a micrometer is one-thousandth of a millimeter). Wigan's works is created by hand though.

Here's some quotes from the micro sculptor..

Though my sculptures are quite small, it's important for people to realize that I am life-size. Of course, at times, when I'm working on a piece, I might come to believe that I myself am microscopic. That's how involved in my work I become. My tiny world becomes everything to me.

Willard Wigan

Toothpick Portrait

For those that are thinking about getting their portrait painted, but want something a little different, why not get a toothpick portrait? ;-)The San Francisco based artist Steven J. Backman creates sculptures and wall pieces made of toothpicks.

"I find toothpicks and glue to be the most challenging mediums to create unusual pieces of abstract and contemporary art. Unlike ordinary wood, toothpicks have personalities of their own that evolve once they are incorporated into a mass of formed space." Steven J. Backman

The artist has a summer promotion on until the end of September too, with toothpick portrait commissions available for about $500 USD.

Toothpick Sculpture of the Golden Gate Bridge

I have mentioned the toothpick artist(Steven Backman) before, with his toothpick portraits.He has since been working on larger and more complex toothpick sculptures of boats, cable,cars, and bridges, but he has also started going micro.

He has made a toothpick sculpture of the Golden Gate Bridge from 30,000 toothpicks which is now in the "Ripley's Believe it or not" museum in Hollywood, which can be seen Here..Steven has also recently created another version of the Golden Gate Bridge, but this time with one toothpick! (see pic in post) Measuring 1 7/8”(L) x 1/8”(W) x 3/4”(H), it was sculpted from 1 toothpick and glue.

Allan Houser Garden Sculpture

Allan Houser Sculpture
The Allan Houser Sculpture Garden offers you the opportunity to experience the work of an American Master. The garden features 85 of Houser's most famous bronze, steel, and original stone sculptures, set amidst the lush juniper pines and beautiful New Mexico skies. The on-site gallery features an additional 100+ sculptures, drawings and paintings - all works by Allan Houser. It is truly a memorable experience. Tours are by appointment only.

How To Make Sculptures How to Begin Wodges of clay

People often ask how to make a sculpture.
I make all my sculptures first in clay because it's easy to use and the process allows for constant alteration - great for me, since I rarely know what the sculpture will be like before I start. I can rapidly add and subtract clay from a piece when necessary. When the sculpture is finished I dry it out and fire it, but that's just how I make a sculpture. It isn't essential, as a mould for casting can be taken from wet clay just as well. Once cast, all of the details of the surface of the ceramic sculpture are reproduced in the bronze.

Bag of clay
This is how the clay arrives. It's great if the bag is intact and the clay is still soft and malleable. It must be kept damp or it will be unworkable and crack. As soon as I begin work it has to stay mostly covered to prevent drying out.

Wodges of clay
As soon as the clay comes out of the bag it needs to be rolled and pummelled to make it fresh, elastic and workable. I do this simply by giving each hand-sized wodge a good squeeze, then I make a pile and wonder how to make a sculpture with these wodges.

The sculpture begins

From the wodges I tend to make very simple sausages and form them into a doll shape - very simply. Here, the torso and legs have begun and I need to decide where to put the arms. This is fun! They could go anywhere... anything could go anywhere!

Filling and rounding the larger forms

I am feeling ok about where the various parts are. Drawing a line along the centre of the figure is how to make a sculpture feel balanced. I can wait till later to decide what the small forms like hands, face and breasts should be doing.

Back - filling out
I reposition the sausages a bit and fill out the forms with more clay. The head needs repositioning and I do this by adding and taking away rather than pushing. The centre line helps me position the arms correctly.

Back - the forms are coming on
The shapes read quite well and the limbs have the right amount of weight. The head is resting on the arm, which in turn is resting on the foot. The whole thing needs pulling together though, and only when I've done this will I know if the sculpture is ok or not.

Back - final details
I add the hair and experiment with it. Eventually I settle on a line which nearly follows the arm movement. The serrations on the hair need to be crisp to make a contrast. Now the other forms need to be honed to make them as round as I want them to be and I need to work carefully on the small forms until they are finished.
It's finished
The larger forms are set off now by the smaller, detailed ones. I added the breasts last - like a punctuation mark. The face is hard to get right. I don't want it to look either pretty or ugly, I just want it to be there. I check that the surface doesn't clash with the form and then allow the sculpture to dry out - slowly - before it is fired. And that's how to make a sculpture in ceramic!

Types of Relief Art Sculptures

There are three main types of relief. The drawing of the distinction between high and low is often drawn differently, and in fact the two are very often combined in a single work - in particular most "high-reliefs" contain sections in "low-relief". Dashes may or may not be used in all these terms.

Bas-relief or low relief
A bas-relief ("low relief", French pronunciation: from the Italian basso rilievo) or low relief is the quality of a projecting image where the overall depth is shallow. The background is very compressed or completely flat, as on most coins, on which all images are in low-relief.


Lorenzo Ghiberti's gilded bronze "Doors of Paradise", Baptistery, Florence combine high relief main figures with backgrounds mostly in low relief.Bas-relief is very suitable for scenes with many figures and other elements such as a landscape or architectural background. A bas-relief may use any medium or technique of sculpture, but stone carving and metal casting are the traditional ones. If more than 50% of most rounded or cylindrical elements such as heads and legs project from the background, a sculpture is usually considered to be "alto rilievo" or "high relief", although the degree of relief within both types may vary across a composition, with prominent features such as faces in higher relief.

High relief
High relief (or alto relievo, from Italian) is where the most prominent elements of the composition are undercut and rendered at more than 50% in the round against the background.

All cultures and periods where large sculptures were created used this technique as one of their sculptural options. Seen in "monumental sculpture" and architecture from ancient times to present.

Sunken relief

Sunken-relief depiction of Pharaoh Akhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and daughters. Note how strong shadows are needed to define the image.Sunken-relief, also known as intaglio or hollow-relief, is where the image is made by carving into a flat surface - usually the images are mostly linear in nature. It is most notably associated with the Art of Ancient Egypt, where the strong sunlight usually needed to make the technique successful for images is present most of the time. In the sculpture of many cultures, including Europe, it is mostly used for inscriptions and engraved gems - the most likely meaning for "an intaglio

Definition

Sculpture 1 Definition: The art of carving, cutting, or hewing wood, stone,metal,etc., into statues, ornaments, etc., or into figures, as of men, or other things; hence, the art of producing figures and groups, whether in plastic or hard materials.

Sculpture 2 Definition: Carved work modeled of, or cut upon, wood, stone, metal, etc.
Sculpture 3 Definition: To form with the chisel on, in, or from, wood, stone, or metal; to carve; to engrave.
sculpture 4 Definition: creating figures or designs in three dimensions
sculpture 5 Definition: a three-dimensional work of plastic art
sculpture 6 Definition: shape (a material like stone or wood) by whittling away at it; "She is sculpting the block of marble into an image of her husband"
sculpture 7 Definition: create by shaping stone or wood or any other hard material; "sculpt a swan out of a block of ice"