If hands are considered difficult to draw what is considered difficult to sculpt?

If hands are considered difficult to draw what is considered difficult to sculpt?

Fine detail in brittle or grainy materials. Hair, including the really impossible stuff like eyelashes, thin beards, chest, armpit, pubic hair), delicate flower petals, very fine foliage, moss, and ferns, Insect legs, wings, and antennae, gauze, lace, and so on. Many textures cannot be recreated so silk or velvet is not sculpted realistically.

This is in spite of the fact that hands are not difficult to draw. Drawing makes things like vapour (clouds, steam, breath), some textures, and liquid effects, difficult to show as realistically as hands and feet.

But since I have the opportunity here, I would like to introduce a few readers to the exquisite marble sculpting of Giovanni Straza, circa 1850, of a piece called “The Veiled Virgin”, where he has achieved the illusion of transparency, purely by effect.

Fine detail in brittle or grainy materials. Hair, including the really impossible stuff like eyelashes, thin beards, chest, armpit, pubic hair), delicate flower petals, very fine foliage, moss, and ferns, Insect legs, wings, and antennae, gauze, lace, and so on. Many textures cannot be recreated so silk or velvet is not sculpted realistically.

This is in spite of the fact that hands are not difficult to draw. Drawing makes things like vapour (clouds, steam, breath), some textures, and liquid effects, difficult to show as realistically as hands and feet.

But since I have the opportunity here, I would like to introduce a few readers to the exquisite marble sculpting of Giovanni Straza, circa 1850, of a piece called “The Veiled Virgin”, where he has achieved the illusion of transparency, purely by effect.

I would say this is a VERY UNIQUE PIECE OF ART in Sculpting . Sculpting a VEIL like structure out of stone is absolutely AMAZING to me . So , I would say that it's really difficult to Sculpt an illusionary veil out of stone.

I shot these pics at “Salar Jung Museum”, in Hyderabad ☺️ .

“Apollo and Daphne” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1622–25

Not in the sense of any particular body part. But to make marble, a heavy stone to look so light and airy, limbs so graceful and vibrant, tapering and unsupported, a great fluidity and sense of barely arrested motion. This 8 foot tall sculpture pushes to the limit what can be done with marble. Though his works are perhaps not so emotionally powerful as the best of Michelangelo, no well known sculptor has ever displayed any more technical skill than Bernini though to be sure, it is said that one of his assistants, Giuliano Finelli did some of the detail work. How much, exactly seems to be disputed.

This photo shows some of the incredible detail work a little better. Daphne, a nymph is in the process of changing into a tree to avoid the relentless pursuit of Apollo (also known as Phoebus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses from which the tale comes.) She becomes a laurel tree but at this stage, she is just beginning to sprout foliage. Hands are no more difficult to draw than anything else, as long as you really look at them and draw what you see.

Drawing hands from memory instead of from life or from a reference image can be difficult because hands have a lot of symbols associated with them, and it's easy for beginners to rely on symbols instead of actually observing the forms of objects. That goes away with observation and practice; in fact, some students master it quite quickly. I would say that it's much harder to master perspective and three-dimensionality, even of much simpler shapes.

In sculpting, considering what little experience I have with it, making symmetrical shapes is most difficult. It's much harder to sculpt a sphere, say, than a leaf or a torso. (Keep in mind that my works have almost always been in clay, so additive and not subtractive techniques.)

Picture Source Quota