Pan has been depicted innumerable times in art history, illustrating an allegorical narrative of his symbolic significance to mythology and his place in the religious and cultural traditions.
Part man and part goat, Pan was the god of wild groves, shepherds, and flocks. Born in Arcadia to Hermes and a Dryad, Pan was a precocious child whose goat’s feet and horned head delighted gods, but startled mortals.
[source: https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Pan/pan.html]
Using the template from the online course I undertook to create my first bust, I proceeded to hand-build the features of the character in stages.
I began with a 'elevation' sketch of the bust I envisaged, with the ears, horns and bearded chin, forming a triangle sitting atop an abbreviated half torso.
I initally sketched the horns as larger protrusions but later amended them to be mere stubs to accentuate the depiction of his immaturity.
In fact, I created the horn stubs using some dried twigs, which I pushed into the wet clay and allowed to set.
Once I had created the features of the face to a satisfactory state of finish, I allowed to dry to a leather hard stage before applying colour to define his character. I used ground, coloured soft pastels, and charcoal which I applied with my fingertips before spraying with matt sealant several times after the sculpture had become bone dry.
Below are some images of the process at the wet clay stage through to the stage before being sealed.
This is my second clay bust made from air drying terracotta clay. I decided to create a more whimsical character from my imagination and chose a depiction of the Greek god, Pan, as a 'man-child' with an air of benign innocence that is contrary to his mythological status as a formidable and lustful beast.
Click on the far left image and toggle through to get a closer view of the sculpture from all angles.
