Rey expertly turned yard after yard of straight wire into the basic frame for a 16" replica of a human statuette or ecorche. In French, ecorche means "flayed" and refers to the fact that a finished ecorche sculpture looks like it has had the skin removed so you can see the muscles and bones.
After the wire supports for the arms and legs were bent into place, the next task was bending wire to support the clay ribcage we will be building in future classes. Rey guided students through the first four ribs and assigned the remaining eight as homework for students who couldn't get them done in class.
Rey provided illustrations of the human ribcage from all angles to guide our wire wrapping and bending. Even though I thought I knew what a ribcage looked like, looking at the diagrams showed me the human ribcage in more detail that I imagined it could possibly contain.
I realized that there is a big gap between knowing enough to merely identify a ribcage, and the intimate understanding that comes from a tactile experience of its form. Like an eager student aboard Ms. Frizzle's Magic School Bus, I can't wait to see what part of the body Rey will introduce us to next week!
We finished class by securing our wire armatures to 12" wooden boards with double pointed tacks. Students with time to spare were able to start rolling their Super Sculpey into sheets to allow it to firm up a bit for next week's class.
Week 1 of Ecorche/ 3D Anatomy was a lot of work, but the results were satisfying.
We went from this:
To this:
I'll be posting every week as the Spring 2012 Ecorche/ 3D Anatomy class with Rey Bustos progresses, so stay tuned!
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