Face of Madonna from Pitti Tondo by Michelangelo

This is mostly a visual blog. Sometimes, however, there is commentary. Today there is commentary.
I’m at a block with Joseph and the Little Girl statue. I don’t like it. It’s too cute. I can’t get the faces right, and I have no clue how to do the hair. The clothing folds are OK. In order for it to be worth my while to finish this, it needs to be something worth reproducing. It needs to be worth looking at in and of itself. The mold making process is expensive and time consuming. Plus, then I’ve got a mold on my hands. (Unless I can find and figure out how to use a 3-D scanner…) Then, it would have to be of interest to other people. At this point, the statue is not worth reproducing. I’m not happy with it. I don’t want it “out there.” It doesn’t do justice to the subject matter.
So, what would it take to make the statue worth reproducing? I would need to actually become a decent human figure sculptor. Ahahahaha. Oh, that’s funny. People go to school for this, you know.
No, really, what would it take? Maybe some YouTube videos and a book on anatomy. Maybe a class at the Compleat Sculptor? I mean, I don’t need to be Michelangelo. I just want by figures to be decent enough to be taken seriously, decent enough for the form not to distract from the content.
OK. So, maybe I should look into that.
There’s another option here: Destroy this sculpture and work on something for which I actually have the skills. And, for what do I actually already have the skills? I think I do want to continue working in clay. What can I make in clay? Anything for which I have a model I can look at, really. OK, then maybe I can look for things that I think are worth imitating. They would need to be fairly compact, 3-D objects. So, no trees. Or could I sculpt a tree? I don’t know. How far do you push imitation?
I could try both… Brainstorm both ways to learn sculpting the human figure models for other sculptures.
I think that is a good plan.
In the meantime, I will not destroy Joseph. I can just put him away for a bit.