Sculpture Workshops Worldwide
In addition to teaching out of his studio in Florence, Italy, Jason Arkles, the Host of The Sculptor's Funeral, also gives workshops at various times throughout the year, all over the world. Below you can find a list of upcoming workshops and how you can enroll. (If the link for a location takes you to a venue where you don’t the course specifically mentioned, inquire through that website’s contact page.) If you are interested in hosting a workshop by Jason Arkles at your own studio/facility, contact him here.
Below the Workshop listing, you’ll find a description of the various courses offered, as well as a description of what the Sight-Size technique is all about.
Workshops around the World in 2023
2023 Workshops will be added here, starting in November 2022.
Portraits in Clay
In this five day course, sculptor Jason Arkles leads the class in creating life sized portraits in clay from a living model, using the visual measurement techniques of the Sight Size method. Students will learn how to build clay portraits over an armature, relying almost entirely on measurements taken with the artist's eye, rather than with measuring tools like compasses. The result is a portrait that goes beyond a 'likeness' and towards a record of the artist's visual and emotional perception of the sitter – a true portrait. Instructor Jason Arkles will work alongside students throughout the duration of the course, providing a demonstration of techniques and practices for the entirety of the course. Students will pair up, and each pair will have their own portrait model, though every student will produce their own portrait.
Modeling the figure in Clay from Life
In this five day course, sculptor Jason Arkles leads the class in creating 40% life-sized figures in clay, using the visual measurement techniques of the Sight Size method. Working from a live model posed in a seated position, students will learn how to build clay figures of substantial dimensions without the use of an armature, in water-based clay. Instructor Jason Arkles will work alongside students throughout the duration of the course, providing a demonstration of techniques and practices for the entirety of the course.
Throughout the course, each student will work from a living model six hours a day. Instead of molding and casting the work at the end of the course, these seated figures will be hollowed out and fired into terracotta statuettes, should the students wish. Alternatively, students can take their work home for further finishing or casting, as desired.
On the last day, various finishing techniques will be introduced, and the works will be hollowed and left to dry for firing later.
Exploring Composition through Sketching in Wax
This course is designed to get students to 'think like a sculptor', organizing conceptions and creative impulses in the context of and with the techniques of past masters. In this course, students learn how to design single and multifigure compositions using the age-old practice of sketching in wax. Working without live models, students will learn not only how to quickly build up a small figure in wax using canons of proportion and a few key anatomical points, but also the historical vocabulary of poses in both single and multi-figure compositions, how drapery and objects reinforce the pose and complete compositions, how action, movement through time, and narrative are implied in a static sculpture, and how to develop a compositional idea for a narrative sculpture, from initial concept through to a finished sketch. Each student will complete 6-10 small sketches in wax. This course is more suitable to those who have previous experience in figure modeling, but beginners also do well.
The Sculpture Clinic
The Sculpture Clinic is a special course designed for sculptors who want to move past the usual nude figure study in clay, into the realm of design and development of a more complex work. During the course, Jason Arkles will lead participants through the stages of developing an idea for a sculpture into a scale model, giving tutorials on pose development, use of drapery and objects, base and pedestal design, narrative structure, and of course, the history of sculpture design. Participants will develop a series of clay sketches along their chosen theme, using both male and female life models, arriving at a fully realized model which clearly conveys the intent and meaning driving the work.
This course is an evolution of Jason’s Composition Sketch course, and sculptors who have taken that course will refresh what they learned there, as well as build on new ideas and skills. Not only that, they will develop their sketches with the modeling medium of their choice, use armatures, and life models – going deeper and farther with their work than the Composition Sketch course is designed to do.
Students will be expected to come to the course with an idea or two in their minds, but don’t worry – you only need the idea and the impulse. How you turn that concept into a sculpture is the mission of the five-day course. Prior to the course, participants will have the opportunity to talk their ideas through with Jason via messaging and email, to ensure a running start on the first day.
Artistic Anatomy and Ecorche
This course is designed to get the student to jump headfirst into artistic anatomy. Each student will complete an ecorche figure (a figure with no skin, revealing the bones and muscles underneath), muscle by muscle, over a resin skeleton 1/3 life size. In addition, every muscle in the face will be modeled onto a life sized plaster skull. Both the skull and the skeleton are the student's to keep. Rather than pursuing the more common and longer process of modeling a skeleton in clay, then painstakingly adding one or two muscles per class, this course is designed for a 'quick and dirty' approach, enabling the students to think of muscles in terms of groups and functions, rather than as stand-alone lumps and bumps on the surface of the model. Sculptor Jason Arkles will lead the class by discussing and modeling each muscle alongside the students, and with the aid of video and digital presentations.
About Sight size techniques:
'Sight size' is the common name for a body of techniques designed to develop the eye of the artist into a powerful, objective measuring tool. It's origins date back to the early Renaissance, and many elements employed in the technique are detailed in Leon Battista Alberti's treatise of art known as 'Della Pittura' first published in 1436. The method cemented itself into its current form when it became a popular technique in the Parisian studios of the 19th Century, when it was known generally as 'the French Method'. The method was favored by the Romantic and Realist movements, as well as the 'New Sculpture' movement in Victorian Britain, and the 'Beaux-Arts style' in the United States.
Utilizing a plumbline, mirror, and simple optical and geometric principles (no math involved!), a person sculpting using Sight size methods has little need for compasses and caliper measurements, ruler measurements, or compositional canons (like drawing a center line down the torso, dividing the face into three equal parts to locate features, and other non-visual, constructionist methods). The result in being trained in Sight size is that an artist has an improved visual memory, an instinct towards seeing the 'big look' of a composition, and most importantly, it leads to a personal, non-formulaic style in art, as the result of sight size is sculpture which stands as a record of the artist's visual perception of the world, filtered through the artist's consciousness. Sight size is sculpting what you see, tempered by how you feel about what you see. Once the method is mastered, a student can effectively model in clay a copy of anything they see in nature around them.