Creating an Island

Task: To create an island using Plasticine clay and draw it using charcoal and/or pencil

Initial Ideas: Having been asked to 'imagine' an island I started to think about what I would want my island to  do for me, how would it inspire me and what would it look like? For me, I would want an island to be somewhere to escape to, to satisfy my sense of adventure, somewhere with hidden caves, peaks that would inspire me to climb to its highest peaks and contemplate my surroundings. Having traveled to far flung places around the globe, it is hard to 'imagine' an island... in the sense of creating a unique image in my head. All I could picture were the spectacular limestone karsts of Thailand and Vietnam - those powerful, majestic rocks, jutting dramatically out of the sea.

 The beautiful limestone karsts of Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand  (E.C.Pledger 2005)

Somewhere to explore... Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand (E.C.Pledger 2005)

How to create this with Plasticine?: The limestone karsts have such a natural look. Made of the bones and shells of sea creatures over thousands of years and sculpted by the changing tides and weather, I would have to mimic this with the Plasticine to really get a sense of how these islands were formed. Additionally, I would have to combine the aesthetics with my initial ideas, to make it look like somewhere intriguing and exciting. I would therefore have to include caves and vertical cliff faces... an adventurous landscape caused by natural geological processes.

Intriguing caves, Yangshuo, China (E.C.pledger 2011)

An ambitious rock-climber, Yangshuo, China (E.C.Pledger 2011)

The realities of creating my island using Plasticine: Having never sculpted with Plasticine before I spent some time just experimenting with it, finding the best way of molding it and trying to make it look like the islands I had imagined. I discovered that the Plasticine has to be very warm in order to to manipulate it into the various shapes I required, and on this cold day in the studio, that demanded a lot of hard work! After creating the islands in the shapes that I wanted them, they represented limestone karsts fairly well, but in reality, the sculpture looked quite boring. I felt that due to the weathering the face of the 'rock' should be more textured so I used the end of a paintbrush to make impressions on the surface of the Plasticine. After being rather enthusiastic and the clay becoming harder as it cooled down, the end of the paintbrush snapped, but I was able to use the splintered wood to scratch more texture into the cliffs.

  
Drawing a small section of the sculpture: I chose to use charcoal to draw the sculpture as I felt I would be able to get a better effect of the textures of the clay and include the sea beating against the rock. I found that by drawing the sculpture, I recognised which areas didn't look natural, and even areas I had not finished completely. I could then adjust the sculpture and then draw it, ensuring that it both looked like the real islands and capture the textures I had created with the Plasticine.