I wonder if basic training gets a bad rap in general, as if some sort of indignation for a student to suffer. For example, it was suggested to me do some bas relief, head in profile training. Having worked in the round for a good while up till that point I somehow perceived this a step backwards, lower level if you will. Of course I was wrong. I came to understand the value of this methodology; the planes must be strongly delineated, yet still softened for transition and all the while preserved within a condensed area of volume, lending this method more favorably to precision rather than approximation - not for the sake of mimicry, but for a isolated understanding of anatomical subtleness. I look at the magnificent portraiture of the 19th century American sculptor Erasatus D. Palmer, and can't help but take notice that he did hundreds of bas relief cameos and plaquettes. Still, for some reason, this type of training is considered elementary by many students of sculpture, and perhaps it is; like the steel and concrete that supports the next floor.
Virgil Elliott wrote:
Someone obsessed to the requisite degree to really master it will not limit his studies to the classroom, but will draw on his own, every day, and in those sessions will be free to choose whatever lighting he wishes.
Someone obsessed to the requisite degree to really master it will not limit his studies to the classroom, but will draw on his own, every day, and in those sessions will be free to choose whatever lighting he wishes.
An instructor, an atelier, no matter how great and prestigious, is only the map, not the treasure. That digging process will be done alone by the student, and with bare hands.
Mike
