Online Demo by Paul Smith. Saturday 13th April

Paul makes most imaginative and humorous sculptural work. The images he makes are dream-like and contemplative and play with the conventions of fairytales and fables, often turning stories on their heads and twisting them. Goldilocks has made peace with the bears and Red Riding Hood has grown up to be a confident femme fatale who entrances the Wolf. His style is bold and semi-abstract with graceful sweeping curves and simplified details. Paul began the session with a number of captivating photographs of his work which very much illustrated this. He then gave us a well planned demonstration in which he made one of his horse sculptures. He built this up using slabs of clay around a rough former made of bubble wrap which was held up by his unique support system made of wooden uprights and horizontal welding rods. It was most instructive to see how he built up the form often standing back to get a better view and refining his work. He then used photos of a similar horse after some drying to show us how he removes the bubble wrap and external support and applies further texture and surface treatment.

Paul’s demonstration was very engaging and lively, much like his work!