The head
Posted by Agnes Iley , Monday, July 23, 2012 8:26 AM
I really had to think about the head. Usually I go for quite strong facial features. I love my sculptures to show character and emotion.
When I was thinking of my Weeping Willow I wasn’t so sure. I was thinking about walking by yourself through woods in dusk. When you see faces in the trees, do you see a face because of those pronounced cheekbones and strong jawlines or do you just see half an eye, a bit of a nose and a mouth? I thought if I made the face to pronounced it would stand out too much. I wouldn’t fit with the overall tree and serene tree feeling that I was looking for. So when I sculpted the face from pre-felt (I start by needle felting a basic skull shape and build on the face from there with little offcuts of wool that get needle felted onto the skull) I kept the features quite flat. Besides the wire frame, the only non-textile I use in my sculpts are the glass eyes. I am sorry about this and I have looked for alternatives over the years, but there is nothing that beats beautifully made glass eyes. They are held in place with very thin wires covered in pantyhose, this makes for an immediate eye-lid. After the eyes are in place the whole face gets skinned in the same way as the body, separate layers and each layer gets sculpted with needle and thread.
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