Working with Limitations

Woman Sitting No. 1
2018
Papier-mâché with Wire
© 2018 suhuixin

I was fiddling around over the weekend to make a small sculpture. Previous trials with stone and clay compelled me to explore alternative sculpting materials that I could work easily, to make up for the physical strength I lack to handle heavier materials.

So I used a powdered papier-mâché for the Woman Sitting #1. It is rather messy at the start with the powder mixture, and not great for the hands when the cuticles are dry and peeling in winter. But definitely easy to work. After 2 days of drying, the texture looks pretty good to me.

Bacelona – Figure Drawing & Sculpture

Back after a 30-day social media vacation! Actually, more so that I felt so battered from the daily walking and activities during the past month of travel in Europe, there was little energy left to be active in posting online updates. The hubby is like a Energizer rabbit when it comes to updating his photojournal for his one-year art challenge.

Whilst travelling in itself provides opportunities to build on life experiences, we make it a point to incorporate in most of our longer some ‘educational’ itinerary. Enrichment aside, it feeds our curious minds and always takes us somewhere new.

This time, we committed ourselves to a two-week ‘figure drawing’ intensive workshop and a week-long ‘portrait sculpture’ workshop in Barcelona. Both workshops were attended in parallel, and the learnings in one workshop complemented and enhanced the other really well. The key takeaways from the cross-learning: understanding anatomy, sensitivity in observation, selection and simplification. These are concepts that are easy to understand and talk about, but when it comes to executing them (especially, consciously) … frustratingly difficult. Sharing here some work done in the 2 weeks of intensives.

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Instruction:
1. Barcelona Atelier of Realist Art (figure drawing) . http://barcelonaatelier.com
2. Barcelona Academy of Art (portrait sculpture) . http://academyofartbarcelona.com