The Portrait in Clay
by Peter Rubino
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter RubinoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-11-01
ISBN: 0823041026
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Book Reviews of The Portrait in Clay
Book Review: 5 Stars for Beginning Artists
Summary: 4 Stars
I am trying to get a hold of as many books on sculpting techniques as possible as I live 2 hours from the nearest college, so this is how I have to learn. While I also gave Katherine Dewey's "Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay" a high review, those techniques just don't translate as well into sculpture as I had hoped (though her discussions on scaling and proportion do). Peter Rubino's "The Portrait in Clay" is an excellent step-by-step beginner's guide to sculpting portraits. Its broken down into 5 sections.
The first shows you the basic techniques on a generic head.
The second section is a brief section on tools. Its brief because he doesn't use very many tools.
The third section shows sculpting with a live model. The photos (the failing of far too many scultping books) are clear, detailed and actually show the area being concentrated on. They are not perfect, but still do an excellent job (you sometimes have to skip ahead a couple of pages to see what the current step looks like when completed).
Section 4 is a detailed discussion of the individual features of the face: nose, eyes, ears, the mouth and chin. Part of what makes this book good is that during the first and third sections, he refers to these sections with page numbers so you are not just flipping around. However I think he could have merged sections 1 and 4, or at least put 4 after 1.
Finally Peter details the finishing process: hollowing, firing and applying a patina. I must reserve judgement here. It reads good, but this is for water-based clay and I work in oils so I can't really comment on it.
Books like this create a difficulting when attempting to rate them due to the differing abilities of the potential reader. So for this I will say 5 stars for the beginner, it has everything you need to make a good portrait in clay. You might even make a few bucks off what you learn. For the intermediate I would call it 3 stars because there is probably something in here that will make your process a little easier or more accurate. For advance artists, I doubt you will find much of value.
My criticisms are three-fold. First, the artist's finished portrait created during this book doesn't look like the live model. But I think this is due more to the artist's eye than his techniques. Second, it doesn't offer any methods for smoothing the work to create more lifelike texture. And third, his patina finishes are, in my opinion, way too heavy-handed. He attempts to create the bluish effect of aged bronze, but really ends up just painting it blue.
Again, a great book for the beginner, the best I've read so far.
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