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Course curriculum

    1. Student Orientation Video

    2. Join your community!

    3. Materials

    4. Vocabulary

    1. Materials& Working in the Third Dimension

    2. Sculpting the Nose

    3. Sculpting the Eye

    4. Sculpting the Ear

    5. The Overlaps of Painting, Drawing and Sculpting

About this course

  • $79.99
  • 9 lessons
  • 2 hours of video content

Great Value

Learn a lifelong skill for the price of a trip to the art supply store

Course overview

In this course, Melanie Berardicelli walks you through sculpting the core features of the face, nose, mouth, eye, and ear using oil-based plastiline. Starting from a simple carved plinth, you’ll learn how to map center lines, add mass, and carve with loop, needle, and spatula tools to create clear plane changes. The lessons emphasize thinking in 3D, reading light and shadow, and borrowing principles from drawing and painting to keep forms turning. You’ll also cover common anatomy landmarks and how to soften or sharpen edges to direct the viewer’s eye, finishing with storage and casting considerations.

  • Build a sculpting plinth in clay

  • Map features with center lines

  • Add and subtract mass cleanly

  • Sculpt nose–mouth as one unit

  • Carve eyes with lids and pads

  • Form ears: helix to tragus

Instructor

Melanie Berardicelli

Instructor

Melanie Berardicelli is a SURP and CE Painting Professor at the New York Academy of Art. She has been an educator of the fine arts since 2014, teaching painting and drawing, life drawing, sculpture, and art history classes at Ivy League School in Smithtown and USDAN Center for the Fine and Performing Arts. Melanie received a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the New York Academy of Art in May 2021 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing at SUNY New Paltz in 2017. Melanie’s artwork explores the spark felt when entering the sacred space of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the history of the Roman Martyr Catacomb Saints; her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout New York State, including The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Sotheby’s, Cryptic Gallery, Greenpoint Gallery, Upstream Gallery, The Huntington Arts Council, and The New York Academy of Art. Currently, Melanie assists artist Audrey Flack in her New York and East Hampton studio locations, creating the underpaintings and sculptures for Flack’s current Post-Pop Baroque series. Melanie is also children’s book illustrator. Her work for Augie Goes to the Library- a 48-page commemoration to the New Paltz community and the titular Border Collie- was published in 2016.

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