Concentration I : The Fortune Teller - Construction

My concentration so far has something to do with creating busts of different characters from a whimsical world that has sprung from my head. I am trying to tighten up the concept. 

This piece is the first of my concentration pieces and it is of a gypsy-like wandering woman. 

UPDATE: Since my concentration is now based on circus, freak show, and carnival characters, this bust will now be titled, "The Fortune Teller" as opposed to "The Gypsy."

I started by combining two pinch pots stuffed with newspaper and attaching a neck to the newly formed clay sphere. 

I pushed in some craters for eye sockets and added some rough lips and a nose. 

I added some eyes and eyelids and I added the semblance of a smirk to my character.

I than commenced my favorite part of the process: carving out the innards of my bust and removing the newspaper. In this part, it is essential that one carves out enough excess of inner clay that the clay is a uniform thickness. 

I added a chest piece and thickened the neck.

Noticing that the forehead seemed a little lacking, I added some clay to the top of my character's head. 

I finally added the hair and the bust.

I sculpted a veil and used a bayer over lace to create the texture. I also sculpted a ruffled off-the-shoulder shirt. 

Voila! It is fired and ready to glaze!

Breadth II : A House is Not A Home - Inspiration and Process

The objective of this Breadth piece was to use any medium to build our representation of a home.

The concept that I wanted to stick to was that sometimes you can't find a home amidst the many houses you encounter. Finding that special place or getting over the one you lost can take years. I want my piece to embody this sometimes futile search.

Sometimes a home is made of the memories, people, and experiences we associate with it; not the physical structure itself.

Admit it, Luther Vandross is THE MAN. 

Here is one of my initial sketches:

I started off making cardboard cut out houses out of simple templates of varying sizes. 

I then chopped one of my rough draft houses so that when it rested on the table it looked as if it was stuck in the ground. 

I multiplied the dimensions of that test house by three and constructed a bigger version as the base of my mountain.

After constructing the small and medium sized houses, I glued everything on the mother house in a gravity-defying fashion.

After adding a coat of white spray paint to make sure the interiors of the houses weren't brown, I covered the entire form with a sandy-white acrylic paint and painted the tiny houses red to accent the color scheme.

I topped everything off with a black feathered strong along all the edges of my houses to give the sculpture a weathered feel. 

I hope I managed to capture the nostalgia and loneliness of not feeling at home with this piece. 

Field trip! A Study of Temporary Nature Sculptures

Inspired by the nature artist, Andy Goldsworthy, our class of three set off on a journey into the not so far off land of the back of our school's campus where there is a lot of muck and insects just waiting to get on your shoes and legs.

We were to come up with a few sculptures made out of found objects. This was quite spontaneous as we were unaware that we would be exiled from our classroom due to some unforeseen construction on campus.

Breadth I : Organic Texture Sculpt - Process

I first started by placing some slabs in two hemispherical penguin bowls. The bowls must be penguin themed. That is of the utmost importance. 

After a a day or so of drying, I scratched and attached the two hemispheres together while also puncturing a hole through their centers and scratching attaching them together to form a donut shape. 

This piece was originally based on the picture pasted on the right-side page of the sketchbook above. It was meant to have the outer texture of the said sea urchin and the inside of the "donut hole" was to have tentacle-like extensions. 

I literally turned my concept on it's head when I got bored with my Homer-Simpson-attracting donut sculpture. I continued with my tentacle concept but dropped the nipple-looking sea urchin texture on the exterior for coral/mushroom-like details on the interior.

I finally topped everything off with some outside etched texture and voila!— A random organic sculpture reminiscent of sea life is in the making. 

Let's Glaze!

I first used some layered underglazes on the exterior which I sanded to create a naturally faded multi-color effect.

I then used some very versatile and interesting high fire glazes in the interior which have different colors and textures depending on the amount of coats and depth of glaze.  

I painted the tentacles with an aged glossy black glaze that had a fantastic crawling effect after being fired. This effect is usually unwelcome so make sure you know whether the glaze you use is super old or this might just happen without your intention!

I am really happy with my super weird and out-of-this-world aquatic themed sculpture. 

Breadth I : Organic Texture Sculpt - Texture Studies

     

Concentration Ideas

For my Advanced Placement 3D art class, I have to create two portfolios: one that showcases my overall skill in various mediums and themes (breadth) and one that is centered on a clear theme called the concentration.

I have a few general ideas for what my concentration might be. All involve various types of sculptures that follow the same theme.

Here are a few:

1. Mechanical/Industrial moving sculptures and machine-like sculptures
2. Sculptures of characters and settings that are gothic, Burtonesque, and macabre 
3. Creatures or monsters that reflect me as a person and go along the lines of the above theme
4. Reflective architectural models (inspired by the work of Takahiro Iwazaki)

Later on, I will be posting about the projects I will be doing for both my breadth portfolio and my concentration portfolio and I will be explaining them as well as posting photos of the process of making them.