Stephanie Jane Matthews
SCULPTURE
Bobby Johnstone
November 2022: I started the sculpture of Bobby after studying several photographs of him. I noticed immediately that Bobby looked different on all of the images, mainly the face shape, appearing long and slim on some of the images and more of a round face on others. The only thing the same on comparison of the images was his mouth, he did not seem to close his lips on any of the images. I spent a lot more time studying Bobby than I did Gordon. I also did not have a side profile photograph, which I knew would make this sculpture more complex than Gordon. Therefore, from the Hall of Fame photograph I picked out the shadows (to work out the dimensions of his profile) as best I could. The expression on his face reminds me of how fashion models pose, it is a look that is very relaxed, and difficult to orchestrate this kind of look for the camera and explains why only selected ones make it for a career in modelling. Bobby has got it to a fine art!
As work progressed on Bobby, I started to notice cracks appearing in the clay and this caused problems, I continued by covering the cracks but then had to re-model the part which I had just added to. After several weeks and still cracks appearing I decided to start a fresh Bobby sculpture, with this one underway and one or two cracks appearing again I began to realise that I had used a different supplier of clay for Bobby than Gordon. I felt this batch of clay was dried out, not retaining any moisture and was possibly old stock that they had sent me. I contacted the supplier and ordered further clay from my previous supplier. This helped enormously going forward with the second Bobby sculpture.
I aimed to capture Bobby as he was in the Hall of Fame photograph (above), his look is very calm and at ease. The profile from the side was quite difficult to get right without a side profile photograph to go off. I had screen shot a few from a video he was in, but he looked much younger and slimmer than the Hall of Fame image. Bobby is the smallest of the Famous Five, therefore I made him smaller than Gordon, but the heights of the finished sculptures can be altered by size of support they will be going on.
I finished Bobby at the end of January and Castle fine Arts Foundry came to my studio to apply the moulding and take away for the bronze process.