Description
ZOE DUFOUR
SCULPTING THE EMOTIVE PORTRAIT
6 Day Workshop
September 25-30, 2023
10:00 – 5:00p
Tuition: $750
Model Fee: $50
Materials Fee: $75
In this six day workshop we will focus on the primary emotions, and how they manifest in the movements of facial volumes. Learning sculpting techniques informed by the antique, Renaissance, and 19th century practices, the class will learn how to compile information from a live model into an individual’s likeness in clay. We will learn how to understand and articulate the model’s expression by relating the large masses of the the face, and studying how they move in concert together to form a clear emotion. This type of kinetic observation fosters an understanding of
structural anatomy in a three dimensional way, while encouraging students to reference relationships between fixed anatomical points. Understanding these relationships will give the class the freedom to use a model as reference for a gestural concept versus only being able to copy what what the model is doing in real time. Students will learn how to judge likeness with volume and mass, in addition to learning to reading depth, while translating what they observe accurately to their sculpture. In this workshop we will supplement our portrait model with photo references to aid in understanding the emotional gesture. The class will learn how to make quality references for themselves, and learn how to read a photograph three dimensionally. The workshop will include sculpting demonstration, constructive critiques, and
lecture. The last half day will be focused on demonstrating the casting process. No experience is necessary, teaching will be tailored to each student’s need.
Instructor Bio:
Zoe Dufour (b. 1990, Thailand) is a figurative sculptor and ceramicist, currently maintaining a studio in Northern California after living and working in NYC for the last ten years. In her work she explores the beauty and design of nature through the study of the human form, ultimately to create art work suspended between how we feel the world, and what we know about the world. She loves the process of sculpting because it gives us a framework to understanding our own perception and biases to better understand the world as it exists, in consensual reality. Zoe is a freelance artist, running Saypience Sculpture LLC, working in various locations across the country on a wide variety of projects for individuals, museums and other institutions, including the prestigious Studio EIS She has studied art at the Ashland Academy of Art, Grand Central Atelier, and Hudson River Fellowship, and has received recognition in her field, including First Place in GCA’s 2015 Figure Sculpting Competition, and First Place the National Sculpture Society’s 2016 and 2018 Portrait Sculpting Competition, the Alex J Ettl Grant from the National Sculpture Society, and was awarded the Sculptor in residence at Saint Gaudens National Historical Park 2020-2021.
