Sculpting as Sketching

I can remember the first time I read James Gurney’s writings in Imaginative Realism about sculpting models as reference for his paintings. My initial thought was to the effect of “that’s fun, but ain’t nobody got time for that.” I thought that if I studied and practiced enough I could produce everything I needed from my head. It’s true that you can become pretty competent working from your imagination, but there were two things I didn’t realize at the time, namely— A) Sculpting is an important part of deep study of form, and enhances your ability to work from imagination B) No matter how well you know an object, even if you can paint it confidently from your head, you will always create a better image working from life than you would otherwise I was reminded of this last week when visiting the LA County Natural History Museum. My favorite dinosaur as a kid was Allosaurus, and I’ve drawn it hundreds of times. I even have rather exhaustive 2D reference sheets that I’ve made by meticulously cutting out photographs of the bones at different angles in photoshop. However, standing next to the skeleton and sketching responsively last Friday I felt a completely different intimacy with the form. It’s tough to describe, but even though the sketch was just a few strokes, I felt so much more connected with the animal while laying them down than I do working solely from imagination or even from very good 2D reference. The more I mature as an artist, the more I realize Gurney was right. There’s nothing like sculpting an object to prepare yourself for a 2D piece. Instead of being concerned about shortcuts as I once was, I find myself more and more sculpting to better understand the anatomy of the animals I’m working with. For instance, today I was working on a pterosaur piece and became frustrated with my limited understanding of the animal’s hands in three dimensions. The results were the digital sculptures above, of an anurognathid pterosaur and a generalized pterosaur arm (lumpy and misproportioned, admittedly, but enough to help me understand how the wrist and fingers fold and unfold. For great ref, check out this guy: link).  I even find myself setting up little dioramas with action figures and lamps the way Gurney does to make sure he gets his lighting right.

Obviously you still have to work quickly to meet deadlines, but I find that if I can fit a little bit of deep study into each project my results are better, and I’m a better artist for the next project I tackle as well.