Sculpture Primary Class Clips

Oh!

That's good.

Picasso was so much more than just a painter.

For most of his life, he experimented with sculpture too.

His creative mind never switched off.

He could see beauty and potential in anything, even in a junkyard.

He'd come to places like this, find things that inspired him,

take them home and turn them into something new.

So I've found my own junkyard

and hope that I'll get some inspiration for a bit of sculpture of my own.

That's good. That's almost a finished emu. Look at that!

Squawk!

I'll have that as well.

Yeah, that's good.

Ah!

Well, there's my junk.

I'm going to pursue my idea of making an emu out of all this stuff.

This problem of sticking things together...

Picasso used to use anything that came to hand -

bits of wire, plaster... He used to do some spot welding.

I'm no good at welding, but I've got some epoxy glue.

They say it WILL stick rusted metal together, so I'll try it.

I want to use this as a beak for the emu. Squawk!

It should work if I sit that there.

Put some glue and that should just hold that in place till it sets.

Picasso loved this construction type of sculpture.

He didn't want to be constrained by the classical carving in stone or modelling in clay.

He really liked the feeling that you could pick up bits and pieces anywhere, put them all together,

'and get a million different textures.

'He sparked a whole new style of sculpture.' Oh, look at that!

You wouldn't believe that, would...?

That's perfect for the wings!

Good, I'll get some wire and hook those together.

I've got an old brace bit without the bit - just the brace.

And it goes through perfectly! Look at that!

What I was thinking was that this...

would be able to...

create a perfect little support for the whole of that body section.

Isn't that good?

I love it!

What about that?

Yes, perfect!

OK,

it's going to be rickety, but then emus are a bit rickety!

Now... Hup!

It's the heaviest emu I've ever picked up!

Still, his hips are in good nick! Look at that.

ROLF LAUGHS GLEEFULLY

Oh, yes! Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Now...

I've got to get it all a uniform rusty iron colour.

'Picasso would've had HIS sculptures cast in bronze,

'but I'm just going to give mine a coat of emulsion.'

Ah!

Isn't it amazing that you can take a great pile of worthless junk

and, with a bit of imagination, turn it into an artistic bit of fun?

Eight miles north of Liverpool, on Crosby Beach, stand 100 iron men staring out to sea.

They were only meant to be here for 18 months, but now the sculptures,

collectively called Another Place, are a permanent fixture.

He ain't going anywhere!

The success of Another Place should really come as no surprise

to their creator, Antony Gormley.

Gormley is the superstar of public art in Britain, having also dreamt up the Angel of the North.

Now more icon than sculpture, the Angel marked a watershed moment in public art.

'I never imagined'

that my work would be popular, but it's sort of become so.

And I guess the fact that it's bodies and not boxes

probably helps.

But I think the most important thing is that it's actually out there -

it's not framed by a museum.

You are part of the work, and I think people like that.

I think there's also that thing in Another Place that...

looking out is what we all do - it's why people go to the seaside,

to see the edge of the world.

Because most of us spend most of our time in rooms.

What do you think that public art should achieve

for people wandering past? What is the point of public art?

I think it's to make the world a little bit more interesting.

I'm a sculptor. I work directly with the land,

working in materials I find in the landscape,

whether it be Japan, the North Pole.

But it's the landscape around my home that's the most important to me,

and it's that landscape to which I keep returning,

and is the place that I can learn most about nature

and my relationship with it.

The slate is so much about layering, the way that it's formed.

And when you get a block of slate and slice it up or something,

it's extraordinary seeing this book of stone being revealed,

and as you lift one piece off another, how you're looking back in time, really.

With the slate being dry,

it has this wonderful capacity to be drawn on -

slate against slate.

I like that between these two things you can produce that.

That, for me, is fascinating.

And that the line

is not just drawn on the slate.

It's drawn OUT of the slate.

It's not as if I've come here with a white crayon

and made these lines.

Today, there's obviously a little bit of tension with the weather

because this is a dry work, a work made with dry slate, as it is now.

But the weather is showery.

At first, I didn't know whether I was just going to do a line.

I've decided to fill it in somewhat,

I think to, um...

to balance it up with the solidity of the slate.

And hopefully something will emerge

where the drawing will appear to have more presence than the slate itself,

so it sort of floats over the slate.

In all the time that I've worked here,

I've never yet managed to make a rain shadow,

which is what I do when it rains.

So I lay down and the rain wets all around me.

Then I get up leaving a dry shadow

where I've laid.

So if it does rain...

I will do one of those - probably just here.

It's quite nice laying alongside the work.

So what is causing the disappearance of one work

is creating the other.

That is rain!

Picking the moment when to get up is always tricky, too.

I think it's a good time now.

Getting up off the slate is awkward.

I don't want to reveal any wet.

My hand is just out a little bit.

That's always the difficulty of making it on a very rough surface.

I like the roughness but it loses the detail.

It's beginning to dry now around the stones.

It is important to take a chance on a work

to see if it succeeds.

There's been so many things that I've told myself that will not... are impossible,

but I've tried anyway and succeeded.

I returned to the slate quarry two days after making the piece

and even though it had rained heavily,

the outline of the work was still there.

So I redrew the work.

It was wonderful to be able to go back and revive a work that had been made previously.

I like that idea a lot.

Degas' Little Dancer never left him.

He kept the wax sculpture in his studio all his life.

His dealer suggested casting it in bronze to produce multiple editions, but Degas resisted the idea.

He said, "It's too much responsibility to leave behind anything in bronze.

"That substance is one that lasts for eternity."

But the Little Dancer WOULD achieve eternal life.

A few months after Degas' death, his heirs signed a contract to cast his wax sculptures in bronze.

The Italian bronze caster Albino Palazzolo was in charge.

In this foundry in Germany, bronze replicas of the Little Dancer

are being cast by the traditional lost-wax process,

the same technique Palazzolo used.

First, a wax copy is made from the original.

This is the wax that will be lost in the casting process.

The wax is encased in a ceramic mould that can withstand the temperature of molten metal.

The mould is fired in a kiln.

The wax is lost.

As it melts, the gases burn away.

The mould is filled with molten bronze at 1,200 degrees centigrade.

The mould is chipped away

and the Little Dancer is reborn as a bronze.

Finally, an elaborate finishing process with chemicals adds colour and texture to the bronze cast.

The 28 bronzes cast from Degas' wax original found their way into the major museums of the world,

where visitors might think they're looking at the original Little Dancer.