More sculpture making with Miles Gavin

So my classes with Miles have been continuing over the last few weeks but because I've been a massively lazy blogger recently I've not been posting progress. BUT how it has progressed! I have really fallen for this medium and I'm already looking at future projects based on what I learnt with Miles.
I did a few more sketches so I could get my colour right and look at all the details I wanted to include (eyelashes, ribbons, and gems)

We then made the basic structure of my cat which involved Miles using a laser saw! It was way too threatening for me to do on my own so he covered that part. I'm sorry but I just don't trust myself with an electric saw or any power tools, I would be a danger to myself and anyone in the surrounding area. I then made this weird looking featureless cat thing and whacked a load of resin all up on it. MIlliput is a versatile 2 part modelling resin which dries in about 45 minutes and goes rock solid.

The next session we carefully put together the facial features, I wanted to give it big bulgy anime style eyes and they are literally the majority of it's face. The face-making process wasn't challenging at all, but you do have to consider little details what you wouldn't normally think about like eyelids and creases on the nose and where whiskers go, but these little details are what really makes the piece what it is. And a stuck a cute little heart gem right on its forehead too.

In the latest session we did some painting! The cat is spray painted all over to create a smooth quick-drying finish. Then the details are painted using a really fine brush. I've somewhat obviously opted for pinks and blues cuz, well, pink cat. This was all done in a step-by-step guide instructed by Miles which had obviously been perfected over his many years of painting animal faces. We then whacked on a layer of spray varnish and my kitty was all shiny!

I'm loving my cat's Sphinx type look but it's all lumpy and bumpy so it'll be getting a nice layer of fur in our last session next week!

Making Sculptures with Miles Gavin

www.milesgavin.co.uk

Miles Gavin is my colleague, my good friend and a fantastic sculpture artist. Originally from Stoke on Trent, ceramics is in his blood and he's got the weird thumbs to prove it (srsly, they bend backwards, it's gross, but apparently it's an odd genetic mutation that's specific to Stoke?!) He's got some fancy Ceramics Design degree from Central Saint Martins and has done shit loads of scholarships and junk. He has interned for the amazing Elizabeth McGrath in LA and created some wonderful masterpieces with her. Basically, he's fucking rad with moldable materials n clay n that.

 

Miles' most recent finished piece

I follow his Facebook page and his other side projects (he's also extremely talented with Photoshop) Miles recently took the plunge and decided to rent out a small studio space, near his home just outside Manchester city centre. When he put a status up asking for a guinea pig for some sculpture making classes, I sprang at the opportunity. I've never dabbled in sculpture before and I've always wanted to work with Miles, plus his studio is like 10 minutes from my flat. So after work one night last week, we went down to his Salford sanctuary. His studio is in an old typical northern pub hotel, it's awesome and creepy with classic deep red, gold and mahogany decor and vintage Guinness advertisements everywhere. Once there, he showed me his latest piece which I would be recreating my own version of and the different materials we will be using. This was great, everything I had seen completed pictures of was being stripped down to just wire and polystyrene and I was feeling enthusiastic about making what I could see in my head a reality.

Pizza, wine and sketching

We then went to his for the luxury of pizza and wine. Miles had given me my very own sketchbook to draw sketches of what I had in mind, make note anything I liked from other artists we were looking at and look at the structure of our classes. We started off by looking at artists who he has been influenced by. In particular Elizabeth McGrath stood out a lot. As a good friend of his, he has talked about her work with me before (some of which he had even worked on.) I'd never looked at it in detail, but the books he showed me (Everything That Creeps and Incurable Disorder) were beautiful, she's clearly very creative and has a keen eye for detail in her work, I loved it! His other reference material were:

• Jessica Joslin - "Strange Nature" Creating hybrid beasts out of brass and bone
• Scott Musgrove - "The Late Fauna of Early North America" Wide bright-eyed paintings and sculptures of creatures
• Juztapoz: Dark Arts - Collection of contemporary weird and dark shit
• High Fructose: Collected Edition 1 - Modern, fresh, colour saturated collection of art prints
• Camille Rose Garcia - "Tragic Kingdom" I can't describe her work better than her Facebook Page description: 'creepy cartoon children living in wasteland fairy tales are critical commentaries on the failures of capitalist utopias. Creative influences include Phillip K. Dick, William Burroughs, Henry Darger,Walt Disney, as well as politically aware bands like The Clash and Dead Kennedys'

Although I loved all of these different artists and got loads of ideas while looking through the reference books (particularly McGrath's use of embellishment with bows and gems and the huge high gloss eyes she uses with eyelashes) I had my own ideas. I love how Miles' work is like really cute but also kind of grotesque and I wanted to take that cute element and make it something hyper hyper cute. I was thinking of the round, curved, squidgy, cartoon shapes I see when I look at the work of Ash Davies and Rachel Baldwin (which is like, daily, thanks Instagram.) I was visualising a cat/ dog creature with a cute :3 style mouth and anime eyes... pink and glittery of course and with whiskers. So together we created a few preliminary sketches, talked about the structure of our classes and after a few more glasses of wine, we finally settled on my chubby cat creature

Miles went through with me how we will be making the skeleton-esque structure for my little fur baby, which we will be doing this week! This will be the first time I've used resin and I can't wait to get started. He has opened my eyes to a new medium of creativity which I'm feeling very enthusiastic about, and I can't wait for our next session on Wednesday!

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