Creating a Bas-Relief Sculpture
Sculpting a Coat of Arms for the Hapsburg Family
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The pattern was cut out of 3/4" plywood in the shape of the crest, enlarging it proportionally to the requested size. I then began drawing the design onto the plywood altering, adjusting and modifying the design as the client desired. |
One hundred year old Plastilina was applied to the board following the drawing. I inherited this clay from one of my mentors who inherited the clay from his mentor. It is now in its third generation of use. |
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| As the plastilina is applied I focus mainly on covering the board, but start adjusting the depth slowly by building up areas that would naturally be higher, and concentrate on not losing my original drawing beneath the clay when applying the clay. | Now that most of the drawing is covered, more focus is spent on building the depth of the relief. In this project the height was to stay relative to the model. So I could measure the thickness of the model and apply that (four times) to the enlarged crest. |
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| Pronouncing and evaluating certain low areas of the relief will dictate how much the higher areas will need to be built up. Areas like the ribbon need to be pronounced to a reasonable thickness, and of course the eagle heads need to be higher than the ribbons. Then the shield higher than the wings and heads and so on. | Once the depth of the relief has been established, modeling the forms can be started. At the same time attention to keeping proper symmetry is on my mind. |
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| Some of this is personal taste, however I tend to finish the areas in the middle of the relief and work out from there to avoid messing up the finished modeling. | While lighting and placement of a relief at any level is very important specifically for portraits and figures. The lighting and placement of the coat of arms is not as important here. The finished coat of arms was cast into bronze and gold leafed. To quote Sculptor Daniel Chester French: "Sculpture is at the Mercy of Light" ...and relief sculpture is even more dependent upon it. |
Michael Keropian
Keropian Sculpture LLC
392 Gipsy Trail Rd
Carmel, New York 10512
845-228-1306