MESA, AZ, April 05, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Master sculptor Stuart Williamson announces the release of his 3 hour and 40 minute teaching video "From the Inside Out".
About Stuart Williamson:
Stuart Williamson was born in North East Yorkshire in 1948. Drawing and painting were always central to his interests and as a schoolboy, it was the surrealists and painters of abstract art that excited him most. Sculpture came much later. If he'd taken a place at Art College as originally intended, things might have turned out much differently. While working as a mould-maker, he was fortunate to be able to watch and study the work of academically trained sculptors - which led to something approaching an obsession with structure and form. He quickly realized that to understand 3-dimensionality enough to be able to work with it, there were no short cuts and no point in relying on 'the happy accident'. He read everything he could find on the subject and traveled all over Europe to study the work of the Masters.
He spent many years at Madame Tussauds, the famous wax museum, and eventually became Senior Sculptor at their Baker St. Studio, London. He produced many waxwork figures and had sittings with numerous famous celebrities, including, Pavarotti, Shirley Maclaine, Little Richard, Michael Caine, Professor Stephen Hawking, Morgan Freeman, and Bette Midler. He particularly enjoyed sculpting the historical figures and working with limited information such as paintings, old photographs, and written reference material. This was useful training for the work he is now most often asked to do.
He now works internationally and specializes in Portrait Sculpture. He has produced historical portraits for a number of major US institutions that include:
* Ben Franklin, Washington, and others for the Constitution Centre Philadelphia
* Portraits of George Washington for Mount Vernon (Washington's home and museum)
* Einstein for the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles
* Harry S Truman for Independence, Missouri
* FDR & Eleanor for the Roosevelt Library
* Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Cottage, Washington DC
* Jefferson for Monticello
* James and Dolley for the Madison Museum
He has sculpted a bronze figure of John Keats the poet for Guys Hospital in London, a bronze figure of Anna Nyambura Maina for the family home in Kenya, and a bronze bust of Simon Bolivar for a Venezuelan client.
In order to work successfully as a freelance sculptor in this particular field of portraiture, he realized that he needed to absorb as much knowledge as he could by studying the work of sculptors past and present and trying to develop personal techniques based on the classical approach to develop a reliable method.
Stuart believes there is much to be said for earning your living at the thing you hold dearest, and that much creative pleasure comes from passing on to others through his teachings, all that was so kindly imparted to him in the past. He has taught portrait sculpture in London, the USA, Hong Kong and S America.
This method has become the center of his courses and demonstrations, and is the focus of this newly released DVD 'From the Inside Out'. Here is an aid that deals with basic elements and offers a structural approach with the intention of removing frustrations often experienced by students at all levels.
He is a Fellow of The Royal British Society of Sculptors, The Society of Portrait Sculptors UK, the Portrait Society of America, and the National Sculpture Society, New York.
About the DVD:
Teaching DVD on Portrait sculpture: A complete Guide by Stuart Williamson
Title: From the Inside Out
A structural approach that takes you through the entire process of sculpting the human head. Concentrating on the basics, it is suitable for any level of student - beginners to advanced.
The main goal is to show you how to work with more certainty and to reduce the frustration of re-working and backtracking.
The 220 minute 2-disk DVD set also includes sections on:
- Modeling and 'focusing' eyes
- How to achieve plausible fleshy forms
- Sculpting hair
- Measuring
- Materials
- The use of reference materials
- Considerations about photography
- Making a head stand
- Using and making tools
Availability:
Stuart has teamed up with Heidi Maiers (fellow sculptor, friend, and Stuart's webmaster) to make this DVD available for distribution in the United States and abroad.
The DVD can be ordered online and is immediately available through Heidi's website at http://portrait-sculpture.com/DVDpage.htm or through Stuart's website at http://portraitsculpture-online.com and ships from Arizona.
The DVD is also available from Heidi's site as a packaged deal combined with Heidi's book and CD "Portrait Sculpture Simplified". While the strength of Stuart's DVD focuses on the most important element - modeling and how to think about forms and structure as one creates a portrait - Heidi's book is the perfect compliment, adding information about how to create a finished sculpture (studio setup, clays, tools and equipment, modeling, molding, casting, firing, patinas, mounting, finishing, and photographing).
About Portraits in Clay
Portraits in Clay, based in Mesa, Arizona has been in business since 2001 and maintains a website at http://portrait-sculpture.com. Services offered include private and public portrait commissions, custom base making services, firing and finishing services, website design services. The site also offers an instructional book/CD/DVD and provides an online community forum for portrait and figurative sculptors. For more information, contact [email protected]
Attention editors: Permission is granted to the press to obtain Images and related text by visiting portrait-sculpture.com or portraitsculpture-online.com
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