top of page

Emmy's Portrait: The Beginning

I started working on Emmy's portrait, my granddaughter, in the middle of August 2022. We had just come back from a vacation with Mac, Brooklyn and the granddaughters in June, and over the course of spending a week with them, I had taken sooooo many pictures, as I do, of Emmy (and Isabella) whenever I want to sculpt a subject, for reference. I wasn't sure how difficult this would be, until trying to play and keep up with a 2-year-old and still try to get the front, sides, angled, and backside, in alignment with how I would normally create a study for a portrait, whether an animal or human. She likes to move, lol. The other situation I have come into is that 2-year-olds grow fast. Her facial features are changing constantly. Just from June to the present, she has grown and developed as happens when kids grow. Every time we facetime them, I see so many differences, I have to come back to the photos for reference. It turns out, I'm a terrible photographer with 2-year-olds when trying to take reference photos. I didn't take a single side view pic the whole time, out of like maybe 200-300 pics, except two very blurry ones. I know. What was I thinking, right?


Anyways, when it comes to sculpting humans, compared to animals, I tend to really try to be as realistic as I can. I'm not sure why, but at some point in my progress, I start to navigate from the looseness of the subject, and begin to "tighten" the details. It's a curse to me, because there's no going back to the freedoms and movements I project with my animals. It takes a huge amount of concentration, and sometimes I lose the subject and sight of what I started with. I bring this up because I enjoy so much to create with the looseness and movements as opposed to the other. It's psychological. Like, there's parts of my mind I need to challenge, and portraits and realism are imbedded within the deeper parts of my characteristics. It's the perfection within me.

For this blog, I wanted to show you how I began and the progress I've made so far. I haven't worked on Emmy's portrait straight through, coming back to her when I can, or in between shows. Sometimes when I leave a sculpture and come back to it, I'll either see too many mistakes and end up throwing it away, or in this case, end up liking or loving it. I have fallen in love with this one. I'll return to this blog soon as more of my progress continues. Thanks for reading and hope you stay with me! Much love!❤️🌻










How it begins. Pictured is the armature before any clay is added.



This is where I'm at presently. Still so much more to go, but getting closer!

29 views4 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page