The Nightwatch - ice sculpture

Straight off the bat I will say I am not a big fan of Rembrandt. I do appreciate that he was a great painter and draughtsman, his colour rendition was magical and he was also way ahead of his time with his obsession of selfies. It's just that I don't feel anything when I look at his work. 'The girl with the pearl earring' has something but in general his work leaves me cold. Maybe it's just era of his work that I can't relate to or just a clash of tastes. But, fair ball to him for having people still appreciate his work nearly 400 years later. I'm sure in 400 years I'll be long forgotten, unless of course Steem lives on.

For this 2005 ice sculpture exhibition in Lieden, Holland the theme was a celebration of the cities son on his 400th birthday. I was given a project along with @stijgerart, Edith Van der Wetering and Andre (Forgotten his second name, sorry) to make 'The Nightwatch', which is one of his most famous painting.

As a material, ice would not have been my first choice for a exhibition about Rembrandt by it was a job and I needed more practice with figure making.

Andre is an amazing sculptor from Ukraine. Much younger than us, he had trained in the soviet style art academies and was brilliant at figurative work. This was a great opportunity to learn from him so, Wilfred, Edith and I were quick to ask him to teach us some techniques and tricks.

Having so many figures to carve between us he first asked us to carve one in the way we usually would do it. Then he could look at our work and critique and form a lesson plan. This was going to be great. Although I studied sculpture in college figurative work was not something they thought with the same seriousness as the post soviet schools.

Base line

We began in earnest. Trying to extrapolate the full pose of the figures from the one point perspective painting was difficult so we needed to take some artistic licence. The way the ice blocks themselves were placed for us was also not very similar to the composition of the painting. One of Rembrandts strong points was his use of composition and from the start that seemed to be lost on whoever designed the placement of blocks but now moving them was impossible so we had to just make the best of it.

My first figure was not great, I could see that myself. The head was too big and the pose looked stiff. I tried my best and it was becoming apparent to me just how much I needed these lessons from Andre.

He had finished his first figure in a day and a half and we were still chipping away three days in. Andre had lots of time to observe and eat apples which was something he always seemed to be nibbling on.

School begin

Andre was very honest when it came to his critique. We were making very amateur mistakes but they they were all easily fixed if we just used common sense. Use our own body as an example and measure from that.

Proportion

The male human body is around eight head lengths tall. So you can stack eight heads in the height of a person. A woman is usually around seven head heights. First find the height of your figure and divide it into eight. From the top you can work out where everything else would be. Each division will be head, nipples, bellybutton, crotch, mid thigh, bottom of knee, mid lower leg and foot. Easy peasy. This is probably something taught day one in in his art school. but for me having it laid out like this meant that I could always measure how long or short something should be. Of course not every human is the same but these are very simple guidelines to get started.

laying out pose

Our teacher told us to draw on the block of ice the outline of what the figure looked like from the front. Try to be as accurate as possible with drawing and the use the chain saw to cut around all this line and exactly on the line. ' You will know that your drawing is wrong and not your carving if things don't work out correctly' Once this step is done then go to the side and do the same and cut around all this line. Now you are left with a boxy figure which you just have to knock off the corners.. There is more to it of course especially for the arms or legs if they are going front or back but the idea is solid. Rounding off all the corners will now give you a form to do the detailed work on.

It's all in the details

Ice don't allow for many details but what details there are should be exaggerated . Strong eye sockets and nose. The smallest details will melt away but the form will stay. Don't bother carving detail on the back as it will interfere with the front while viewed through the ice. All these were great tips and tricks.

Hands

For hands Andre suggested we make mitts which we could fuse (stick ice together with water) guns and other elements onto and then add the fingers later, This makes them look more complex but it easier to do than trying to carve each individual digit..

Model students

With all these techniques now in our toolbox be set to work on the other figures. What had taken us three days we could achieve in just one and the army started to look more dynamic and lifelike. I will always thank Andre for doing this for us and what for me was a pretty boring project to work on, as we were just copying the work of the famous painter became a very worthwhile education. I am still far from my goal of making the perfect person in ice but with these simple rules and tricks I think I got a lot better. and so did Wilfred and Edith.

Over the years I have developed my own techniques and can now go into most projects with a definite game plan and if it is mostly thanks to this project.and young Andre.

Here is one of my characters using the new learned knowledge. It may not be the best but, for me I could see a massive improvement.

I think even Rembrandt would have approved. Edith carved the man himself sitting painting the picture.

Alas, I didn't like the whole piece, There was too much going on and the different ice figures in front of each other seemed to not read very well. That was really down to the way the ice was placed and something that I think should be avoided with ice. It always looks better when you can see a strong silhouette.

Source

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Ps

Thanks for reading. I use Steem to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.

The Annunciation - ice sculpture

Mice in the cupboard - ice sculpture

What to make? - sand sculpture

I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite