Galleria Romanelli, Bas Relief

For this project I wanted to try a "Bas Relief" as it may be something I come across later as these are very common in historic cities and may need to be repaired or replaced. For the model it is based on the coat of arms for the city of Florence the "giglio" or "fleur de lis" with stamens showing. The model was made from a cast of a marble bas relief.

Originally I would start of copying it exactly, but then worked to increase the symmetry and add details that were missing from the model. Due to the fact that this project was a bas relief laying down, there was not a practical way to do the sight size method on this sculpture. This one would start off slowly as I took all the measurements I would need, the length of the border, depths of the relief, distance between different elements of the sculpture.

First the border was laid out as close as possible, and then the interior was filled with clay and water and worked to get a mostly flat surface. Once it was flat, I drew out the design in the wet clay. Later I would build up clay over the drawing I had made.

At this stage it is just trying to get the dimensions correct for the border, and smoothing the center portion.

Filling and smoothing the interior of the relief.

A centerline is drawn and starting to measure and chart out different elements of the design

Here is visible the finished drawing and different built up elements. The marks are where I pushed a clay tool into the clay to bind the elements to the underlying relief so they would not move easily.

here all basic shapes have been applied, now it is time to focus on details and building the proper depth. I designed the bas relief to be shallowest at the point nearest the viewer at the bottom the bas relief, with it increasing in depth toward the top. It was my hope this would make the sculpture more interesting to look at.

Adding details, at this point I had been trying to copy the model exactly.

On noticing one of the giglio on the city walls was very symmetrical and the leave shapes could be seen, I decidied to add those to my relief.

Center leaf details

Left Leaves

Leave base

The bas relief is now set aside to cure.