Folk Art Pig-Part 11-Photos

Up to this point I have been working on creating the armature that will bear the weight of the sculpture.  The armature portion of my folk art pig is complete.  Now it is time to start adding detail.  I might also add that I have not seen a pig in person in a while.  I live in a small neighborhood that borders farm land.  One of my neighbors kept a pig name Bacon.  Bacon grew from a piglet into a good sized hog.  One day Bacon disappeared.  Rumor had it that one of the neighbors had filed a zoning complaint and the family was ordered to get rid of the pig.  Others suspected that the pig might have ended up as...well...bacon.  Anyway, I am creating this folk art sculpture from memory.  The proportions probably are not exact nor is the pig anatomically correct.  But then, that's folk art.


My first addition was a simple sheet of poster board across the torso.  There was some sagging between the ribs.  It would be easier to make the additions even if the area were level.  I did not add another sheet across the hip area because the dip between the final ribs actually worked into my plan for building the muscle structure.

The hips were the highest point of the torso.  I started there because it would be easier to create the hips then build up the shoulders to be proportional to the hips.  If I had started with the shoulders I could have run into a situation where the shoulders looked right but the hips would have to be pared down to fit with the shoulders.

Making a sculpture is in some ways like drawing.  When starting to draw you use basic shapes such as a circle, oval, cylinder, or rectangle to get a general idea of how to place your line.  With sculpture you think much the same way except using three dimensions to create three dimensional shapes such as sphere, hemisphere, cylinder, cube, etc.  The upper muscle of the hip appears rounded and a portion of a sphere.  I had to think of how to create that shape.  I decided to use a padded paper plate to create that look.  I made the padding by wadding up a sheet of newsprint to about the size of a snowball and taping it with masking tape to hold its shape.  Then I taped it onto the hip area with more masking tape. This supplied the padding that would hold up the paper plate.

The paper plate was next.  The muscle is not completely round.  I cut a slit up the paper plate in order to overlap it slightly.  This forms the upper muscle of the hip.  Of course I have to do this on both sides and make it come out evenly.  That is not is easy as it seems. 

At this point it does not seem that there has been a significant change.  Part of that is the photos chosen.  In order to show the process, you are not seeing the bigger picture right this minute.  Once the lower muscle is added and the area is covered with paper mache there will be a significant change in the appearance of the structure. 

Next blog will be creating the structure for the lower muscle.