Sculpting, Your 3D Alternative

After doing all the posts about How To Paint, I realized not everybody is going to be able to jump right into art with a paint brush. Oil painting can take quite some time to get the hang of, I know I'm still learning. But one method of self expression I can wholeheartedly suggest to any newbie artist is sculpting.

Perceptions

In reality our brains constantly gauge distance and depth subconsciously without an effort on our part. We know, through pattern assessments, what effort it will take to walk from point A to point B, that the apple will look similar to the point of view we see it on the other side of it, and that people are full of curves, contours, and depth just by looking at them. We spend our whole waking and non-waking lives in the 3rd dimension. That's why creating 3 dimensional art can be easier than on paper or canvas.

When we paint, we must give the illusion of depth and distance, thus making the artwork 3 dimensional in our minds. We worry about shadow and light, size and shape of objects, and how the viewer can perceive them to be real. When sculpting, nature takes care of all of this. Looking at a sculpture of a person, even an abstract representation of one, our minds make out what it is by just the basic shapes. All light and shadow exist naturally within the art object based on its curves, crevices, and formations. Instead of working to represent an object, you are actually making the object.

Mediums

We all remember modeling clay when we were in kindergarten and how much fun it was to use. Unfortunately we moved on to sentences and basic math, and as we progress through school our left brain studies we neglected our creativity more and more. That's just life, I suppose, but it would be a truly liberating feeling to be able to create like in kindergarten.