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Observer14 — Oak Dryad - Deeply Rooted
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#dryad #fantasycreature #female #oak #tree
Published: 2016-06-06 20:33:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 292; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 0
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Description
Terracotta Clay, 21" tall.This is a re-work of another piece I did while in Italy. I had to give the original away to another friend, since I didn't have room in my luggage to safely get it home in one piece.
WIP is here: fav.me/da1mb78
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Comments: 17
She is lovely and as gracile as she should be.
I apologize for the lack of comments. I'd sit down to comment, look at your work, think "Oh, wow!", and the words would trample each other racing to hide in the back of my mind. And then I'd go away for another day. Frustrating, really frustrating. Your work is improving with each piece you make. Your eyes are picking up more and more subtle shifts in anatomical forms in your sculpts, and also in your drawings; and it is a joy for us to watch.
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Yup. Sometimes it takes me a while to wrestle the right words together and make them into a decent comment. 
Yeah, it's been pretty interesting for me to watch too, when I take the time to step back from the work and consider. One funny thing is that I'm actually trying to use more photos as references for my sculpts, even if it takes two or three different photos to composite into one piece. I do carry a lot of the details of the anatomy in my head, and seem to have a sense for how the form of the body moves around and balances, but there are still some of the subtle points that work better if I'm looking at something to get the bits and pieces right.
Thanks! That is a huge encouragement!!
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Photo, or any other kind of visual reference, is critical to pushing the believability of a piece into near reality. There is so much our brains subconsciously react to as "real"; that we cannot easily call up to put into a piece which, if missing in the final product, destroys any illusion of life we might otherwise have achieved. There have been several times when I've told my daughter, stand here and do this, while I shot a bunch of photos, because I couldn't see the particular muscle curve, or bone and tendon position that I was trying to catch, correctly in my mind.
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Yup.
Also, if you only depend on your imagination, you tend to find yourself in a rut. You tend to go back to the same face, the same movement, the same symbols....
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Thank you! I do like how she moves.
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Yes, exactly. Her lower half extends into the ground as the trunk of an oak tree. On the top, her hair comes down over her chest and merges into the bark which is coming up her side. I've had some people confuse the "trunk" part for a dress though. :-/
This sculpt is perhaps not as clear as some of the others I've done in this series, where there is more tree and less person. It's one of those continuum things.
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a dress? well i bet it's because of the shoulder- strap
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Possibly. When you actually see the sculpture (as opposed to the photo), I think the flow from the hair down is a little more clear.... but yeah. Live and learn.
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Thanks! She does have a powerful flow....
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Is this based on a live model or on photographs?
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mostly from memory (and basic proportion rules), which is a composite of lots of little bits and pieces I've seen here over the years (including from my drawing class). I would love to sculpt from a live model, but not sure how to make that happen....
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