Portrait sculpture courses are practical.  The skills taught are perception and anatomy based and designed to get you further towards understanding what you see.

You will be learning the whole time and enjoying becoming more confident in modelling a likeness.

Each studio session is designed to help you uncover and learn sculpture techniques and sculpture skills. Tuition will be both group orientated, but also tailored to your your individual needs.

I hope you will leave brimming with as much knowledge as I can pass on>  My intention is to you the confidence to successfully undertake a portrait commission of your own.

We will look specifically at the choice and use of materials, deciding on the dividing line, ensuring the mould is keyed and how to deal with undercuts.

5-days is only a start, but you get a solid foundation.  You will work on your own sculpture and see other peoples' moulds develop and the different ways to tackle different problems that present in each individual piece of sculpture.

A sculpture can look fantastic in resin-bronze. But it has to be done well and there are many aspects that cannot easily be learned from books or video. 3-days to mould, and 2 -days to cast and patinate your own piece.

Portrait Modelling

The portrait bust represents one of the most challenging tasks for the sculptor. The aim of the course is to train ways of seeing that develop perception of 3-D form. Using the portrait bust as the vehicle, you will uncover a complex understanding of the subtleties of the human architecture.

Throughout the course you will focus on method and procedure in a pragmatic approach that enables each stage of perception to be readily grasped.

Measuring and anatomical proportions
Develop acute observation through stages of perception
Building an armature with different methods of construction
Going beyond knowledge of the human anatomy

Learning to close the gap between what is observed and what can be reproduced
Creating a likeness:
Working to commission
Bringing the clay to life
Knowing when to stop
Rescuing a disaster

Silicon Mould Making 

A practical and technically based course where you learn to make a mould of your own work and explore mould making problems and how to overcome them. Max dimension 30cm x 30cm x 30cm

Resin Bronze Casting

Getting it right. Casting your own work and learning to patinate using the hot flame method.

Portrait Modelling

The 4-day course is divided into 8 periods of sustained clay modelling. These are interspersed with relevant lectures and discussions. The skills used each day will be built upon in subsequent days, so that a protocol is developed that proceeds from the simple to the complex, from the external forms to the subtle details.

Each day will focus on specific aims and objectives in rendering a life-like portrait bust, with demonstrations and lectures covering style in sculpture, sculptural language and aesthetics.

The course concludes with a critique of the work and an assessment of what has been learned. 

The heads are prepared for firing, for later collection.

Silicon Mould Making & Resin Bronze Casting

The 5-day course is structured to both practically make a silicon-mould and to have supportive lectures and demonstrations about problem solving in mould-making.
The 2-day Bronze Resin Casting course gives you time to learn the essential skills of bronze resin-casting to make the work look like bronze. The course concludes with the work being and hot patinatated with acids

Other casting materials are also explored.