Sculpture Final Exam

Sculpture Final Exam

Required Questions
1. Tools have been more useful in this class than you would think. I experienced that working with clay a rib is super useful. When you use the clay rib it turns your piece from a beginner piece to an intermediate piece of work.Once you have your piece the way you like it meaning the size and shape, you can use the rib to smooth out the clay and remove any lines or stray marks. It makes your piece clean and presentable, which is the way i like my art to look. Another tool that was extremely helpful to me was the box cutter. A box cutter helps you cut through thick surfaces or materials. When i made my dwelling project i made a house out of plexiglass and in order to cut the correct size walls and roof i had to use the box cutter. Without using that tool it would have been nearly impossible to make a house that had even walls and clean cuts.

2. Through this class i have learned a lot about process, product, and tools. Before this class i didn't realize all of the tools there were for clay making. After taking this class i have learned how to use all of these tools. I have learned that the cut-off wire is really helpful in cutting a smaller piece of clay from the large bricks they come in. The wire tool is just a generally useful tool if there's a part of your piece you just want to scrape down a little bit especially if the clay is pretty dry. Another tool that not a lot of people realize its value is the clay tool box, it helps keep all of your clay tools in one place that way you don't lose them. 

Pick 3 Questions

What was your favorite material that you used this year? Why do you like working with it?

My favorite material was plexiglass. Unlike clay, plexiglass doesn't change its texture and dryness overnight. When i worked with clay throughout the semester i had trouble with it drying too fast before i was done sculpting it, which was frustrating. That's why i liked working with the plexiglass, the form never changed and because of that the final project turned out more successful and cleaner looking.

Regardless of whether a project was successful or not, describe the one where you learned, grew, or developed the most from? Please explain.

The project I learned the most from was the Vessel project. When I came up with and idea for the project, I had a certain way I thought it would turn out. For this project I planned to use the wire I bought for the class supply list. Except when I was using it it was too thin and malleable so I had to try other wires. I also thought that this project would turn out to be a small sized bowl with tall sides except it turned out to be more large and flat and flexible. Through this project I learned that when you plan your art project and then you actually start to make it, the final product doesn't always turn out the way you expect to.

Choose 1 piece of art that you used skills and techniques learned from previous projects. Discuss your growth as an artist and how you incorporated these skills and techniques to create the piece.

I used skills I learned from previous projects in my butterfly relief piece. In my relief project the first major project of the class I used skills from the mini lessons that we did previous to the project. For example from the styrogami lesson I learned and developed my X-Acto knife skills. I use the skills to precisely cut the butterfly wings. In addition to developing my cutting skills, when I worked on the relief mini piece those techniques were the ones that inspired my main project. 

Unconventional Materials Blog

The biggest challenge of this project was figuring out what to make out of the champagne bottle tops. Once I found some inspiration and an idea for what I wanted to do the process of making the project when pretty well. My project came together pretty successfully. The only thing I would change is maybe just add to it, if I had more tops I could make more chairs and tables.  I picked to make mini furniture out of the toppers because when I took them apart they looked like chairs to me. So I added the back supports and created a table for them to sit around. But once the chairs are all around the table they look like chair people because the backs look like the top of a person and the stool looks like a chair. So I thought that was pretty cool. I didn't have any other ideas for this project this was the first one that came to mind. 

Figurative Blog

I chose to make the cranes instead of the figurative project. I made about 8 cranes. 

Origami Installation Blog

(picture, the installation was taken down before I got a picture of it and the picture on your blog isn't working)

The process of making these cranes went well. We went through the planning and developed a well thought out plan for the installation. Most everyone was making them and sense they were all made from the same paper they all came together well. The product however didn't go exactly as planned. We had to change things as we put it up, with strings falling down and cranes not staying in place. 

Questions:

We created the cranes using large paper and origami techniques. The process for this installation was making all of the cranes, then developing a plan of where we were going to put them up, and how we were going to install the art, and finally actually putting it up. From this lesson and the short art show the class participated in I learned how real world artist have to deal with the process of displaying their art. The process is the planning and the arting that goes into creating a piece of work which becomes the product. 

Tray and Bowl

I liked the hump mold process we used for this. I think this process improves your chances of having a successful turn out.  I love how my pieces turned out because of the glaze I used. I used a crystal glaze that gave my pieces a unique look. I didn't use underglaze just regular glaze. The bowl shape and detail was successful and the glaze was successful. In the future I would spend more time on the plate I could have smoothed out the sides and given it more time and attention. 

Dwelling Blog

DWELLING PROJECT-

The most challenging part of this project was cutting the plexy glass. It was difficult at first trying to cut straight lines and then bending them so they would break cleanly. I had to sometimes cut extra pieces when they didn't break they way I wanted them to. This project was one of my most successful projects so far, I like how clean and perfect it looks. The marble windows were successful and the walls were too. In the future I wouldn't change anything in particular, I would just add more details to it. 

Between the Folds

I thought this documentary was pretty interesting. I liked how the folders used math, art and computers to change simple white paper into all types of amazing oragami. It was amazing to see how the folders create wonderful "paper sculptures" without adhesive or cuts.  I think Vanessa Gould was ingenious to make this type of documentary to show people how much more than just folding paper oragami is. 

Vessels

For this project I had to overcome challenges with materials. I first I tried to make the circles out of very thin wire but they turned out to not be very sturdy. So then I used gardening wire which worked a lot better. The geometric shape and look was successful in this project. I wish that it was a little cleaner but hot glue is interesting to work with, which is why that was the unsuccessful part of my project. So in the future if I were to remake this project I would try it make it cleanier and crisper. My project is a vessel because it is in the shape of a bowl and you could potentially put something in it, therefore it is functional. 

Mini Mold

I liked the mold process because you can get a uniform piece and replicate it easily. This piece was successful because it looks like the mold and i didn't have anything go wrong in the process. 

Pit Fired Mini Project

So i started creating this piece by rolling out a piece of clay with the rulers on the sides to make sure it was the same thickness. Then i got a wide piece of piping and wanted to make a coffee mug, so i planned to shape it with the tube thing then with my hands shape it to a cup shape. When i put the clay slab on the tube it wasn't long enough to go all the way around so i rolled it out more, but that changed the thickness and made it uneven. I let it dry out overnight because it was to wet to shape or take of the pvc. The next day when i tried to take it off the pvc it was stuck on really well, so i ended up having to slice it off. Then i tried to slip and slice it back together, but it was still to wet form into the mug shape. I let it sit out again but then it got too dry and i was too hard on it and it cracked at four spots. I did surgery on it again to put what was left of it back together, but at this point i was sick of it. I put the tericic on it and then the next day prepared it by wrapping it in the wire and aluminum foil. The whole mini piece was a massive disaster, due to many things. I'm kind of drawn to this type of work, i have a love-hate relationship to it. I hate it because of when it doesn't turn out right like this, but i do like the medium.

Relief Project

For this project I used an butterfly temple in 3 different sizes to keep so similarity throughout the piece. I traced those onto the black paper, then used an xacto knife to cut out the outer edge. Once i finished that which to a while because i had to be so precise, i glued white paper behind the cut out area of the butterfly. The butterfly temples were successful and also the color scheme was very successful. Gluing the white paper behind the cut out area wasn't as successful as the rest of the project because some of the butterfly wings got stuck to the dry glue. Which caused so of the white outlines to be not as clean as i would like them to be. What inspired me was the mini-relief project that i did with this same technique. I really liked how it looked sort-of 3D, so i wanted to create a similar piece with the same type of effect.

Mini Relief

 

In the second picture I made a paper relief. At first I had no idea what I wanted to do so I looked on Pinterest and found an Artist named Yoshinobu Miyamoto who makes incredible pieces of art out of paper. So I was inspired by his work, bra use in some of his pieces it is very difficult to understand how he even created the piece out of only paper. Here's one of his works 

 I created a very basic mini art piece with triangles and 3 pastel colors. For the cardboard cut out I made a palm tree. When I was thinking about what to do I thought about what would compliment the 2nd to last layer of the cardboard that has the ridges. I thought that the palm tree leafs had a similar texture so that's why I chose to do a palm tree. I didnt turn out as well as I hoped it would because the last bottom layer of the cardboard was tough to work with. 

Inspired Artist

The artist I chose that most inspires me is Yulia Brodskaya. She was born in 1983 and is a paper artist and illustrator. All that she uses is paper and clue and she used the quilling technique. She was born in Moscow, Russia, but moved to the UK to pursue her art education. Yulia has a lot of impressive clients like Neiman Marcus, Starbucks, Cadbury and Godiva. Also Oprah Winfrey along with the Country Music Association and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art own some of her original artwork pieces. What interests me in her work is the bright and vibrant colors. Also I really like some of her pieces that are geometric and somewhat abstract but create a picture. All of her pieces of work are made of the mostly the same shades of colors which I like because then it brings all of the works together.

Link: http://www.artyulia.com

Styrogami Blog

I feel that my styrogami piece was successful for the most part. For this being the first piece I have ever done of styrogami it turned out well. It could have turned out better if I had a sharper xact-o knife, because the edges of the cut cup were jagged. I really love the angle the cup was photographed at because it makes it look way better than it does in person. I also think the bottom of the cup is sort of distracting so if I had more time I would have cut the numbers and label flat off the cup.