Curator’s Corner
CuratorsCorner.com
A blog for teaching
with fine art images
Blogger Karl Cole, curator of images for Davis Art
Images, is an art historian who has spent over 25
years working with world-class art museums around
the world. Karl was curator of Rosenthal Art Slides for
fifteen years, and after Davis Publications purchased
Rosenthal in 1996, Karl continued his work as curator
for Davis. All of us at Davis appreciate Karl’s great
gifts: we learn something new from him every time
we ask about a particular artwork, artist, or style.
This blog offers our valued Davis community that
same opportunity.
We invite you to follow Karl and
learn something new about art.
TEACHER-TESTED
New products tested and reviewed by art teachers just like you!
Techniques of Sculpture:
Geometry in the Clay Portrait
PCF Studios, Inc., pcfstudios.com
Teacher: Jack Williams, Culver
Academies, Culver, Indiana
Level: High School
Review: In August I attended
one of sculptor Philippe Faraut’s
workshops, where I purchased his
latest DVD, Techniques of Sculpture,
Geometry in the Clay Portrait.
Faraut’s approach to sculpting the
head emphasizes planar relationships
of form, and he demonstrates how to
begin constructing the larger volume
of the head first, then the subsidiary
volumes of the features. In each case,
he patiently describes what he is
doing, and, more importantly for my
purposes as a high-school painting
instructor, how he is doing it. For the
novice sculptors in my classes, seeing
and hearing how to produce the form
of, say, a nose or a mouth encourages
them to take risks with their
sculptures and understand that there
is a straightforward method that will
promote success. That’s what I find
so engaging in Faraut’s teaching in
person and on the DVD—the manner
in which he resolves virtually
every step in the construction of a
portrait sculpture, then patiently
demonstrates precisely how students
can achieve such resolution.
