FLY WITH ME - A Mind Liberated

A short story on the inspiration behind my second sculpture, the creative process I followed and final result FLY WITH ME.

The best thing about Art is its honesty, a way to express our dreams. Any kind of Art can bring joy and freedom without the need for permission.

Through sculpture I can create Art that brings my dreams to life.

My inspiration

I am inspired by many other creators and thinkers. Their words of encouragement to take time to travel our minds, to dream and see where our imagination can take us helped me to take the steps on this path as an Artist.

”When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”- Walt Disney

When we take time to explore our mind and all the many ideas we have, we can find some gems and maybe a few diamonds.

”Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”- Albert Einstein

Even from a man like Albert Einstein who was well known for his understanding of science and observing the facts that make our world function, imagination was seen as superior.

And for those who like their inspirational quotes with bit more sass, we have George Clinton, who said:

”Free your mind and your ass will follow.”- George Clinton

One of my favourite sensations, is that of flying. I can’t quite manage it yet in real life, but when I delve into my mind, everything is possible. I would guess flying above the plains, mountains and rivers is something most people would dream of too. Life is so expansive and unlimited, with many amazing ideas that can come from our imagination. It’s a journey worth taking.

My concept

So now you understand why I created the Fly With Me sculpture. This was made by combining my vision of a mermaid and a bird. A mermaid who can explore the beauty of oceans, but still look up and be curious of the beauty in the skies above, and dream of what may lie in the many lands beyond the shore.

I imagined this mermaid being friends with a bird, so they can share their stories of the beauty of both worlds. A beautiful partnership where they can explore the wonders in the deepest ocean and fly above the mountains. Together they can see more and understand the world on a much deeper level.

Process of creating the sculpture

Before sculpting, I have to sketch out some drawings of my concept to find the best layout. I chose the sketch on the right because it shows more connection between the mermaid and the bird. And this layout is quite challenging to model in clay and requires good technique to keep it from breaking.

First I made the general shape of the sculpture, then placed some wooden sticks into the wet clay to make the structure stable and avoid it collapsing. I then waited until the clay was dry enough to take the wooden sticks out of the sculpture.

This step needed some good observation as removing the support sticks too early would have caused the sculpture to collapse and if I waited too long, the clay would be too dry and crack.

Can you spot all the support sticks?

Once the structure was stable, I could work on adding more detail to the sculpture, including the fine details seen in the picture below:

The clay sculpture was shaped by hand and then I used simple tools such as bamboo and wooden knives to refine the shape and add more detail. And for making the bubbles on the waves under the mermaid, I used a ballpoint pen.

The sketch only covers one perspective of the sculpture. Even though I followed the direction from my sketch, my mind was free to explore, to fly across the creative land of my mind and develop other perspectives. This sculpture also gave me a great challenge to study and practice anatomy in 3D.

I have included some pictures showing a few different angles in the photo’s below.

You can see the final result with all details on this clip.

Thank you for taking time to read this post, I hope you enjoyed it. It gives me great joy to be able to share this with you all. If you enjoyed reading this, please share it with others.

And if you missed my last posts about my first sculpture, you can see it here MOTHER SEA – A Poem, Sketch & Sculpture born from the Love of our Oceans

@livvu