“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” —Michelangelo

I decided to start on the “Imperium” horse sculpture today, and as a way of pushing me to keep at it (I tend to start sculptures and then never finish them) I am going to post progress photos here at least once a week. In fact, you can poke me via emails if I don’t post, that will help!!

In very broad terms, I tend to be a “subtractor” rather than an “adder” when it comes to building a clay sculpture. I more often carve clay away rather than add or shape (although there’s always a pretty good mix of give and take with that, especially in the early stages). Hence, the Michelangelo quote above, which I feel an affinity for and like to think of while sculpting. (Though I simply can’t imagine how difficult it must be carving marble!) I definitely can see the horse in my mind right now, and the task is releasing it from the clay.

Here is the very first shot of the clay, as I have packed it on to the simple stick-horse wire armature:

I have to get a good pile of clay slapped on there, in order to start removing it to find the horse’s proportions. So that’s all you can see here today! Doesn’t look like much, does it?