Saturday, March 1, 2014

Sculpture study

One of my bucket list items is to sit in a famous art museum in Paris and study one of the masterpieces.  But, whenever I visited the museums, I was either not prepared or did not have the time to sit down.

This month, I got to visit Paris on work and had a chance to visit Musee d'Orsay.  I saw many art students copying pieces of art (copying a painting or sketching a sculpture) and that inspired me to give it a shot.  I had some time all for myself so I could sit down and study one of the art pieces.  Unfortunately, yet again, I was unprepared.  All I had was a clutch pencil from my hotel and a few sheets of printer paper.  Nothing to scream about, when it comes to sketching.  But, I wanted to give it a shot and knock off one of my bucket list items.

I picked the 'Woman bitten by a snake' by Auguste Clesinger.  It is a marble status of a woman writhing in pain from a snake bite.  I liked the sculpture because of the tension and torsion in the statue caused by the twisted pose.  And, there was a ledge right across the statue in the museum.  Perfect for sitting on and studying the work.

Below is a picture of the actual statue in Orsay, and a few pics of me sketching it and the final result.  Overall, it took me about 30-45 mins to complete the study.  Enough time to rest my feet before checking out more art!