George’s Artistic Adventure Continues

You can read the rest of this series here.

Last time I checked in, I had just entered my first Art League exhibit. Before that, I blogged about taking my first art classes — Stained Glass and Basic Drawing. For my latest adventure, I’m taking Wood and Stone Sculpture with Nick Xhiku.

Why sculpture? I first became acquainted with the course when I stopped by George Tkabladze’s class to make this video. It looked like fun. Everyone was working on their own project, both first-timers and veterans. I wanted to take the class because it looked — am I allowed to admit this? — cool. I really like the idea of working on a piece of stone for weeks and, when I’m finished, having my handiwork around to share, like with my stained glass window.

So last week was my first class, and while I was a little worried I would be out of my depth, as usual, I was not the only beginner. Nick started us off with some sculpture books for inspiration and some clay. No guidelines or instructions other than to experiment.

1st-day-clay

I tried a lot of different things, mostly abstract, trying to find something I could be happy working on for eight weeks. I definitely enjoyed working with clay — I’m actually thinking of taking ceramics next.

What did I come up with? I’ll tell you more about it in my next post, but for now, here’s a preview:

— George

Some more photos from my first two classes:week2-stone3 week2-stone2 week2-stone week2-stone-close week2-1