Inspiration

My birthday was a few days ago and every year around this time I contemplate my direction and goals as an artist. One of the things that I enjoy doing is stay home, drink warm coffee and daydream. Yes, that’s right-daydream. Eventually I’ll think about what I’d like to sculpt next. Usually it’s a grandiose idea that gets scaled back to more of a realistic size.

The idea to sculpt a portrait bust of Babe Ruth came while I was sitting at the drawing table and looking out at the falling snow. During the weekend I had watched the Sandlot for the first time. Jessica recommended the movie and although I was at first reluctant soon I realized that it would be good. The movie was centered around baseball and had the Great Bambino as several talking points throughout.

Art

What I’ve learned about creating art is that the more one thinks about something the better it will turn out. A good example of this is my bust of Babe Ruth. The idea came to me on Monday (4 days ago). By Tuesday I was snowed in with 20 inches of fresh snow and couldn’t leave the house. I spent the day thinking about creating the clay bust and studying the subject. I gathered up several digital images on a thumb drive knowing that Wednesday I’d be able to bust out of the house for the studio (which is less than 2 miles from my home). On Wednesday I setup a digital camcorder to record the sculpting process. 10 hours later I had a finished portrait bust and the film to make a time-lapse video of it being created.

The portrait took me 10 hours to create. The reason that it went so well was that I took the time to study images and read about Babe Ruth. I also had thought about the sculpture and its various angles in my head. So that when I began working on it, I felt like I was sitting in a drag racing car.

The 15 inch tall bust will eventually be cast in plaster or bronze and added to the studio collection. Here is a youtube video I made of its creation, 10 hours squeezed into 2 1/2 minutes Babe Ruth portrait bust time-lapse