Sculpture Studio-Wood

Critique went well for my wood sculpture. I think my jellyfish idea came across, one classmate said it reminded her of the Hellboy creatures. I like how it turned out for the most part. I know it would be more refined with more time, but I learned a lot about various shop tools and practices.

Below the left image is unstained, and the right is finished in semi-gloss, and stained Golden Oak color. I was going to use Red Oak, but I turned out not liking how dark it would look.

Sculpture Studio-Bronze

In Sculpture we'll be learning to make a small sculpture out of bronze. Its a lengthy process that will take about 6 weeks. I immediately knew that I wanted to do something personal for this assignment after seeing and becoming inspired by the work of Kim Obrzut. She does bronze sculptures based on her Hopi heritage. They are usually of women carrying out ancient traditions and celebrating the culture.

So my take on this will be a woman inspired by my own mother. I sketched this while I was at work thinking about what to do. It may or may not change, but I do love this sketch, and I'll admit I teared up a little while doing it. LOVE YOU MOM! Hehe. The woman carries 3 babies on her back and armfuls of corn and wheat. I can't wait to get started on this!

Watercolor Studio

So I got inspired by a surrealist artist I read about in a magazine while I sat and thought about what to do with the background in this painting. Call me crazy but I really did not want to paint what was actually there. Too mundane, too boring. I like where this could go, whether it gets there or not remains to be seen, lol. I think I have plenty to play around with and hopefully the professor will appreciate the effort, lol.

3D Watercolor

So I overhauled my watercolor sculpture, I like this version a lot better, thank goodness for gesso! Above is the finished product. I decided to add some assemblage elements so it would have more mass as a finished piece and to make up for the actual paper cast being smaller than required. As as I was walking home from class I found these industrial nails next to a construction project and picked them up, I didn't know I would use them for this piece but when I finished it it to its current color and decided I would add some depth elements, I found the nails worked well with the theme and composition.

Another part of the assignment was to have a current event (from any time period, world or personal) to associate our piece with or use as inspiration. I had trouble thinking of what I wanted to do, but I found one day on campus walking to class a huge tree had been cut down, for what looked like no apparent reason. I'm a big lover of nature and I do think of trees sometimes as "old spirits", so I decided the environmental aspect of what I saw could be my "current event".

So the female form comes from my view of nature as female and creator. The lines on her body and color relate to the wood of the tree. The red is the "blood" or life force that has been drained from her. I decided to add wires and paint them red to both symbolize blood vessels and to show the connection of her severed limbs. The nails became the final act of "man-made" violence.

Its a gruesome piece, as much of my work as been before. But its all about the drama! Haha. Below are some progress shots, and you can see in the first one, the horrible colors I had to cover up. It was such a disaster, lol. I'm thankful that everyone's cast hadn't dried in time for critique and we got an extra day to work on them. Also is the small thumbnail I did in watercolor after starting over.

Sculpture Studio

Today I had a couple of accidents with some power tools that proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I don't belong in a shop. I have a battle scar to prove it! I've learned I cannot use a pneumatic chisel and the fact that I still have toes on my feet is proof enough. As for my scar, well a sanding disc flew off my right angle grinder across my arm. Fun stuff.

I have here my sketch for a relief sculpture design. It morphed from a rising sun to some sort of jellyfish. I like the jellyfish more. My block of wood I was going to use for the cap of the jellyfish was too narrow so I stretched it to make two jellyfish joined.

Whats funny about this was while I was making the two caps, they started to look very much like a Mexican chips and salsa bowl set. Which kinda made me want to make one. LOL.

Here is a line-up of some of the tentacles I made. I'm really proud of the more winding ones. Heh. They were fun to sand down and watch take shape. Below is a mockup of what the finished sculpture will look like with just the tentacles layered on top of one another.

3D Watercolor

I made a mold and cast it for my paper relief sculpture. The paint didn't come out so well so I'll be redoing it and posting those pics later. Here are the before shots of the clay mold above. Below are the shots of the actual paper cast.

Watercolor Studio

Things in studio have been moving slow due to my lack of supplies! I miss last semester when I had everything at my fingertips and my paint was always wet! Wet paint is underrated I think, its the best! But now I'm working from dry cakes again, oh well. I did a photo shoot with my good friend Eddie, the fruits of which are growing now!

3D Watercolor

So I did really well on my critique in 3-d Watercolor. The assignment was to create 10 small sculptures using harmony and variety. I didn't really have any idea what I was going to do, and I didn't really plan any of the pieces, so I just started out painting in the same 2 colors and black and white, hoping that would create the harmony for me, and then I just had fun with the cutting and folding till it made something.

I didn't think they would go over so well, but the professor asked me to display, and I was the only one he asked. That's super awesome considering I stayed up all night and morning finishing them up!

There were many works that were interactive and really unique, but I guess mine just stood out as more of a collection. They were likened to Pre-Columbian art and yet were very contemporary. That makes my day.

Sculpture Studio- Mock-up

This is the paper mock-up of my wood sculpture I'm thinking of doing. The more I look at it the more it looks complicated, lol, but maybe I'll find a way of simplifying it.

Fall

So I've started my fall classes and looks like I'll be busy busy busy! Which is good because a lot of different art will come out of this semester, from watercolor, to 3-d paper sculpture to sculptures in wood, bronze, wax, etc. I'm excited about what will come out of the different classes and how the work will sort of relate across the board.