stone] Re: Carving the Short (Straight 1/4" Long) beard of the Male Homo Sapiens

Quoted text begins.RE: ". . .the area is slightly raised from the surrounding facial area
and minimaly textured."
End of quote.

Hi all;

Though I am not sure the following would apply to evenly short beards
very well, a note about this common way (". . .the area is slightly
raised . . .") of showing the transition from skin to hair.

If you look at the work of Emilio Greco (Italian figurative sculptor -
mid-20th century - primarily terra cotta and bronze, but some stone work
too) you might see something that seems counter-intuitive but works
really well: though the main mass of hair protrudes out from the
underlying contours of the skin, when he makes the transition between the
two surfaces he works the thin area (specifically look at sideburns or
transition areas at the temples) so it is slightly below the surface of
the skin and very slightly textured. On life-size pieces this depressed
contouring is no deeper than about 1/8th of an inch and no wider than
perhaps 3/4-inch before the mass of hair rises above the surface of the
skin contour.

What this does is creates a slightly shadowed area that reads as less
massive and captures the 'wispy' nature of the thin hair through which
the skin is still visible. Greco does this on other transition areas
between thin or short hair and skin as well. When viewing the works from
more than three feet away it fools-the-eye as a very naturalistic
transition, but of course close inspection allows the depressed area to
become more obvious. This is an example of the artist capturing
'gesture' rather than following naturalistic reality so as to convey a
better expression.

There is a small museum of Greco's work in Orvieto that is right across
the street from the Orvieto Duomo (cathedral), for which he received the
commission to do the large bronze entrance doors back in the 1950's.

Good Carving to You,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html