Detailed Course Description

Two days. Six LIVE sessions. A complete journey into sculpting the human figure at the torch. Join Dr Julie Anne Denton for an intensive weekend exploring figurative sculpture in both soft and borosilicate glass. Beginning with fundamental torso construction, we will progressively develop the figure through Venus forms, complete standing figures, historical abstraction and finally the more ambitious Dryad — Spirit of the Trees. This is not an anatomy course. Instead, you will learn to understand the figure through proportion, balance, gesture, heat placement and three-dimensional construction — simplifying and exaggerating the human form until it begins to develop character and expression of its own. Across six LIVE sessions, Julie will demonstrate before sending you back to your own torch to practise. We then regroup for the next session, giving you time to test what you have learned, discover where things go wrong and bring those questions back into the classroom. We will work progressively through: Session 1 — Foundations Functional bails & the soft-glass torso Session 2 — Developing Form Borosilicate torso & Venus Session 3 — Gesture & the Complete Figure Venus, Renaissance Woman & full soft-glass figures Session 4 — Simplification & Problem Solving Cycladic sculpture & Figure Hospital Session 5 — From Figure to Narrative Dryad — Spirit of the Trees, Part 1 Session 6 — Completing the Sculpture Dryad construction &refinement The progression is important: the course begins with relatively simple torso studies and gradually moves towards complete figures, structural refinement, ancient sculptural forms and narrative sculpture. Each stage reinforces the techniques that came before it. By the end of the weekend, the goal isn't simply to know how to reproduce a torso, Venus or faerie. It is to understand why a figure works — why one pose feels balanced, why a small change in an arm alters the personality of a sculpture, and how simplification can sometimes communicate more than anatomical detail. The goal is not to reproduce Julie's figures. The goal is to begin discovering your own sculptural language. The breaks between sessions are intentional: watch → practise → return → develop. All LIVE sessions will be recorded, so international students can participate in the sessions that suit their time zone and catch up with the remainder afterwards through the recordings and the shared learning platform.