Week Eight (continued)

During the last month I have been doing a lot of browsing through books and searching online for some inspirational ideas for my own sculpture. A few artists really stood out to me.

Initially I wanted to carve a still life composition, and found  two artist who caught my attention the first was Lon Etzel who carves Western Inspired realism (subject matter that I am quite fond of).

 

The second artist whom caught my attention is a carver named Bat-Ami Helerman, she works in a variety of different materials including stone, mixed media, and bronze. I found her work interesting in her realistic replications of soft, often light materials in marble and black granite.

I began getting interested in the idea of carving bones, and Nick showed me a piece done by Michelangelo  that was vary inspiring. It is just a small bit of ornament on a large tomb that Michelangelo was commissioned to design but it really stuck out to me, especially the detail of the bones.

I was further inspired by the detail of a designer named Grinling Gibbons.

All this inspiration lead to a culmination of my ideas. 

I combined the basic design concept of Michelangelo, but wanted to include some foliage inspired by Grinling. Ultimately the skull will be the toughest piece to tackle and I look forward to the challenge.

This is the piece of Italian

Squaring the piece of marble to a workable

Cutting the Piece into an oval

Squaring the sides of the oval and outlining the coyote skull

First layer of the background has been cut down.