Rob Johnsey - Broomhill Sculpture Prize

The story continues:

Friday
Cast a cylinder of plaster of Paris with a star “hole” through the middle made with wooden pieces with Vaseline on. Carved this immediately into an approximate sphere so that the star points curved around the top and bottom.

This was the fourth maquette carved in plaster and was the most pleasing with potential form for the final sculpture. It was difficult to shape and smooth the interior star shape and the exterior was only roughly shaped with a surform plane by the end of the day. It was enough, however, to point towards a possible solution.

Tuesday
Made a balsa wood maquette similar to the plaster one mentioned above. This time I made a 13 point star to explore the effects of more points. I bought balsa wood sections which are normally used for the trailing edges of model aircraft – these are cut at a10 degree angle. With enough of them glued together I could make a sphere with a hole in the centre and eventually a star shape. This method of construction would mirror that which I would use with a full size sculpture.

I like this maquette and will choose it as the basis for the full size sculpture. At the moment I have in mind a much more spherical shape than the maquette but I do like the irregular lengths of the star points.


Friday
Cut a full size circle out of corrugated card to get an idea of the scale.

Thought the 4 ft diameter looked large enough but this will be expensive on materials. The 3 ft diameter would look ok in the right setting - perhaps among the shrubs and trees. The larger diameter could probably stand out on its own.

Decided to go for a 3.5 ft diameter. Made half size plan drawing and drew up a cutting list. Decided to go for 4 ft height of each plank giving me the possibility of cutting an egg shape rather than a sphere.