a land of Tibet

Through My Eyes

Yet more working on the sculpture of Tara Drolma! We can see some progress on the torso and the beginning of work on one of the arms. The lower torso is not yet fully roughed out ; it will be a fair bit wider. I might as well tell you of the big mess. I was moving the sculpture by pulling the base along on a bit of carpet last Friday afternoon. The legs of the rotating stool base caught a bit and bounced and it just fell over! It must have looked very funny although it sure didn't feel that way at the time! After a few moments to regain composure I hauled the piece back onto the stand and set to work rebuilding just about everything from the shoulder girdle up. Except for the time to put up the pages for our sacred place I worked steadily until the early hours of the morning then got up several hours later and continued work until the late afternoon. I was trying to work on it while I could still remember how everything was! Actually though as I mentioned things tend to improve with more practice. In any case the face of Tara Drolma I think actually has a more active quality that matches the strong movement of the torso and the general theme.

A bit of technical stuff. There are actually lots of things going on here beautiful one! Her hips are oriented in one direction her shoulders in another giving the body a twist that depicts animation and strength. It's called contraposto although I'm not sure of the spelling. This is something our instructor Barney Hodes emphasized along with the importance of creating large changes of angle and displacement. The human eye tends to straighten things out; if you sculpt like this the piece may lose complexity and power.

Here's a closeup of the face. The upper back needs to be a bit less massive but I think the face is much improved. All that struggling was worth the result I think! I spent a lot of that time humming the tune of Ngawang Sangdrol I mentioned last week. If any of the indomitable Tibetan courage of the song has become a part of this the mishap was a wondrous thing. There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one!

* courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for

the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje.

( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)


	Through My Eyes * Yet more working on the sculpture of Tara Drolma! We can see some progress on the torso and the beginning of work on one of the arms. The lower torso is not yet fully roughed out ; it will be a fair bit wider. I might as well tell you of the big mess. I was moving the sculpture by pulling the base along on a bit of carpet last Friday afternoon. The legs of the rotating stool base caught a bit and bounced and it just fell over! It must have looked very funny although it sure didn't feel that way at the time! After a few moments to regain composure I hauled the piece back onto the stand and set to work rebuilding just about everything from the shoulder girdle up. Except for the time to put up the pages for our sacred place I worked steadily until the early hours of the morning then got up several hours later and continued work until the late afternoon. I was trying to work on it while I could still remember how everything was! Actually though as I mentioned things tend to improve with more practice. In any case the face of Tara Drolma I think actually has a more active quality that matches the strong movement of the torso and the general theme. A bit of technical stuff. There are actually lots of things going on here beautiful one! Her hips are oriented in one direction her shoulders in another giving the body a twist that depicts animation and strength. It's called contraposto although I'm not sure of the spelling. This is something our instructor Barney Hodes emphasized along with the importance of creating large changes of angle and displacement. The human eye tends to straighten things out; if you sculpt like this the piece may lose complexity and power. Here's a closeup of the face. The upper back needs to be a bit less massive but I think the face is much improved. All that struggling was worth the result I think! I spent a lot of that time humming the tune of Ngawang Sangdrol I mentioned last week. If any of the indomitable Tibetan courage of the song has become a part of this the mishap was a wondrous thing. There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one! * courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje. ( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)