First off, let me say that the teacher I was working with, Nicole Tonkin… is a magnificent artist in her own right. But, to be that and an outstanding teacher as well?! Those are some lucky kids!
Nikki and I met a few years ago when she had contacted me to help one of her year 12s to do a full head casting in clear resin. I was so impressed with her and fellow teacher Cherie, that I couldn’t wait to get back to Swan Christian College to do another workshop mainly because I knew that they would push the kids to do their very best!
For SCCC, I provided a Figure Sculpture Workshop using Super Sculpey. I delivered this workshop to 2 classes over a couple of days with another follow up a few weeks later.
And let me tell you the SCCC kids did not disappoint.
Prior to my arrival, I had Nikki instruct the kids to design and draw to scale, their characters. From that point they create full scale armatures. They then flesh them out and begin to apply their details. And that’s all in day one! By Day Two, the details are starting to get refined and sharpened.
Each and every kid at SCCC was attentive and super focused. I absolutely loved all the different designs that they came up with! And each and every pose, was totally different. This really kept me on my toes as far as teaching goes and while some of them groaned when I had them correct an area…they were quite understanding once they saw it corrected.
At the end of the last day, I taught them how to sculpt a face and then did a facial speed sculpt for the group.
I came back a few weeks later to see how they got on. I was not disappointed. Almost every piece was nearly ready to paint and the details and proportions were almost all on point. Not back for a group of High Schoolers,many of which, who had never sculpted before!
Thanks for having me SCCC, I really had a blast and I cant wait until we get to do it again!