FROM EGG TO ABSTRACT
Teacher: Kat Shapiro Wood
Monday Evenings 5.30pm to 8.30pm

This will be a beginners’ class in both learning practical skills to work sculpturally with clay and an introduction to some of the most elemental forms within the tradition, utilised by masters throughout history.

Kat will lead you on this journey through the craft and ‘language’ of sculpture by means of an exercise in modelling the simple yet complex, pure form of an egg, and from there transforming it into an original abstract work of a sleeping head.

In being guided through the interpretation of this natural form, and with reference to works by sculptors such as Brancusi, students will gain insights into the subtleties of form and relationships of form to space.

Once the clay work is resolved, students will be taken through the mould making process, to then create a refined plaster cast (replica of the clay original). Should you wish to return and work further on the piece, the plaster form may be given a coloured finish to imitate a chosen material, eg bronze, marble etc.

Week 1 Introduction. Sketching study of egg form. Clay modelling.
Week 2 Modelling egg form.
Week 3-4From egg to abstract. Sketching, modelling.
Week 5 Plaster mould making. Casting in plaster.
Week 6 Breaking open the mould. Refining the cast.