KATHMAN
the surface of our sculptures to accentuate the appearance of living flesh. Ripples, bumps, stretches, wrinkles,
and other curiosities are typical of the equine hide, features that need our attention just as much as musculature.
Paying attention to goo not only adds life to our sculpture,
but can heighten the sense of motion and moment as
well. Depicting skin that stretches, pooches, ripples and
wriggles can add kinetic features to our piece that can
amplify the sense of effort and speed. Carefully placing
wrinkles or oozy goo in a composition can also heighten
the sense of flesh and mass, adding weight to our piece.
So what’s the hoopla with Goo?
A good way to study how the fleshy areas of the
body move is to set your camera on continuous shot
(“burst”) mode. This series of shots shows how both the
lips and nostrils change shape as the horse chews.
watery fluid and often oily fluid. For example, there is a
lot of bubblewrap fascia under the scapula and round
the point of shoulder to mediate all the friction.
Tarp: non-stretchy and wraps something such as the
aponeurosis of the torso.
Gel wrap: wrapping in jello-like loose connective wrapping, often serving as a heat sink.
Tensor Fascia Latae (TFL): it pops the patella off the
“thumb stay” of the femur to release the stay apparatus,
or to “take the patella off the hook.” It helps in lateral
work by working as an abductor and a weak protractor
and guards against locked stifles. It often manifests as
an obvious strip from the point of hip to the stifle.
Clearly, there’s much more to fascia than previously
thought! Indeed, it could easily be argued that fascia is as
important as muscles and bone in the living animal, and
so the same can be said for sculpture, too. Most often, it
is fascia that helps to give hide its various textures and
character, whether at rest or in motion. Because if we pay
close attention, we find that flesh has surface eccentricities, so we shouldn’t be afraid to input some oddities into
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In a nutshell, goo adds life to anatomy. Without it, structure remains mechanical, inert and sterile; our piece will
appear as a static sculpture rather than as a living animal. Goo also accentuates everything else in a sculpture.
For example, goo makes hard bony areas or firm muscle
masses more believable because of the contrast it creates.
Delicate wrinkles on a firm neck or mushy veins on hard
bone really help to impart the idea of a living animal with
real mass and immediacy. Goo is also a blast to sculpt,
with curves and gooshy features that allow an artist to
play, providing a welcome contrast to the technical demands of realistic sculpture. And, ultimately, goo offers
a deeper understanding of the structure and physics of
the animal, beyond the strict mechanics of the anatomy,
which can deepen our appreciation for our craft.
The truth is that anatomy is the blueprint—yes—but without imbued life, a sculpture is simply a representational
facsimile of that blueprint. This is fine unless we really
want to capture that rare anima that brings our sculpture
to life. We must remember that every anatomical chart
ever conceived was created from studying dead horses,
and unless we comp [