For the vessel project I went with a similar theme that I did this year which was, to do things I hadn't tried before. I made a bowl out of wool fibers, this was a new challenge that I enjoyed overcoming. Making the bowl was a lot harder than I thought it would be, since I had to make sure the fibers would stick together, this involved a lot of soap and rubbing. I used two different types of fibers, one that is the blue green inside, and another that is the red orange outside. The project didn't turn out exactly how I was expecting it to, but it was a lot better than what I could have hoped for. I'm not sure if I will work with the fibers again in the future, but I had a lot of fun learning a new way to art.
Has your definition of art clanged since from the beginning of this class? Yes. I find that in every art class my definition of art changes a little bit more each time. Art is not somethings that you can teach, you can teach someone techniques, but you can't teach someone what art is, they have to find that part out on their own. I used to think that art had to be something that you could see what it was right away like "oh yeah that's defiantly a bird!", or "Wow that person is so realistic!", and yes this is art too, but art can also be organic shapes, something completely abstract. Something is art when it can make even one person feel something, happiness, anger, confusion, wonder, hope, etc. For me this project was my free project. The free project almost took me to another place while I was making it, and I really liked how I felt when I made it. The final piece for it looks like a lot of things too, which makes it even cooler to me. I always enjoy a good abstract piece.
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. For the animal head project I painted it with water color, which is something that I learned how to do the first time I took sculpture and ceramics, I also made eyes for it, and I learned how to do that last year as well. It was really cool seeing techniques that I hadn't yet used on a project, work so well. The water color work so well for my walrus's skin texture, something I wouldn't get with acrylic or glaze. The eyes still took me about five times to make, but they looked so good once I did get them right.
Do over: If given the opportunity, which project would you do over? Describe why and how you would redo this project. Reasons might include choosing a different theme, using a different medium or creating a different idea completely. Include photo. If given the opportunity I would redo the plaster project. I really did not like the shape and I had no direction with what I was doing. I had wanted to use a balloon for this project, to make it more rounded to begin with, but things came up and I was never able to get a balloon, so I just had to use a bojangles cup. The project itself was not bad, it just wasn't what I wanted or what I had in my mind while making this. I did enjoy working with the plaster though, and I will try to do it again this summer.
Sketchbook: pick any warm-up from your sketchbook that you found beneficial, interesting or simply felt you handled well. Describe the activity and reason for selecting it above the others. Include photo. We didn't really do warm ups in our sketchbooks, but I did choose one picture that I had drawn for a project, and I ended up like the picture more than the sculpture itself. I choose it because it is a perfect example for the kind of art I am into, creepy, twisted art. The drawing is of a bald head with vines growing out of the eye-sockets and a tree growing out of the mouth. Its a quite disturbing picture, but I think it is kind of beautiful, in its own creepy way. I think it is interesting because it kind of lets you see the creepier side of me.
Critique an art piece of your own. The dwelling piece is an interesting project because I didn't have a plan for it at all, I only knew what I didn't want it to be. The whole project I was mostly just grabbing things that I liked and things I wanted to put in it, like the mirror and the hat. I ended up filling the hat with dirt and planting bird seed in it, the grass grew a lot more than what I was planning on, and I wish that I had only put in a few select places instead of letting it grow up and dominate the whole surface. While the grass looked cool I was planning on putting small things inside of it like stumps that I had made, and some other small trinkets. I made a few small fairies to "live" in the piece, and I think they turned out really well. I painted each of their wings a different color, and gave them all little black bobs, like a flapper. The colors of the fairies added to the piece because I was able to add blues and purple to the mostly blandly colored project. I added broken mirrors around the edge of the hat and I think it added a really sweet effect that I wasn't planning on, I would totally use the broken mirror in another project. For the most part I am proud of the dwelling piece, but if I could go back I would try to have an actual plan for it.
For the plaster project I had wanted to put it in a balloon, but sadly I could not find a balloon for my plaster, so I had to use a cup. The plaster carving was pretty cool, I've never worked with powder plaster before so it was defiantly a new experience for me, I will totally work with it again.
The free project is actually a lot harder than most would think, you have to limit yourself to random stuff around you, or something under three dollars. I first started with a wooden piece that I had drawn a bunch of random stuff on, and had some other people draw on, and then I was going to burn the doodles in, but it didn't end up working out the way I wanted it to, so I decided to something else. I found a bunch of ribbed hot glue sticks, that don't work for any of the glue guns we have, so I decided to put them to use. I started by cutting off some small sections of the glue and slightly melting them with a heat gun. I repeated this process multiple times until I got the look that I wanted. The glue was melted on a small piece of dry wall, and once the glue was built up it had an organic almost icy look to it. I had a lot of the glue left over so I thought, "why not make another?", I wanted this one to be a little bit different than the first one though, so I painted the white dry wall blue, red, and purple, and then melted the glue on top of that. Both turned out better than I could have hoped. I have really enjoyed making abstract sculptures, watching them change forum, but still looking cool, abstract could be anything, and that is one of my favorite parts of art.
The pit fire was a new experience for everyone, but it was a lot of fun to do something new like that with the whole class. I worked with red clay which turns a brown orange when fired. The pit fire didn't really work for me, but I still got a pretty cool mushroom out of it.
For my dwelling project I wanted to do something different from your regular dwelling, a mossy house, nest, or some other kind of traditional piece. I decided to make to just grab some random materials and just roll with it; I grabbed an old hat, and a mirror, and let the inspiration kick in. I decided That I wanted to add an natural element to my piece, which I have never done before, I planted bird seed in my hat, and the grass grew better than I planned. Working with something that grows as fast as the grass I used was interesting because one day it was the perfect height and the next it was two inches taller, something to keep in mind when arting with living things. I defiantly enjoyed this project more than I though I would, it gave me a new way to do something that has been done multiple times. I felt that since this was a dwelling that I should probably have something that lived inside, so I decided I would make fairies who would live in the grass, surrounded by mirror shards. I made the fairies out of skulptee and painted them with acrylic paint. I did enjoy painting the fairies, because I enjoy working on small scale things. This project was fun and different from anything else I've done in sculpture.
Saggar Firing is the method of creating confined atmospheres within a container or saggar.The saggar can be made out of anything depending on the type of firing from the traditional refractory clay to newspaper.Originally saggars were used to protect the finish from the debris flying around the firing chamber from the wood or coal fuel source.Roughly 200 years ago, potters decided to reverse this and use the saggars to hold material near the pieces to dramatically change the finish. You can use a few different methods like; aluminum foil, tin cans, and paper grocery sacks
For the mini lessons I made mushrooms on a clay tile and a cardboard trunk of a tree. The cardboard tree was my least favorite, in fact I'm not sure what happened to it, but it didn't work out the way I wanted and in the end it didn't even really look like a tree. I ran into many problems with this piece, I had a hard time over coming my problems, I was able to add some texture to it, but it didn't help the piece at all. The biggest lesson I learned with this one was, sometimes there are problems you can't disguise even when you try your hardest. The mini clay tile I did was my favorite the mushrooms look so good, and I was able to add a lot of texture to the background in the end it was a nice piece. I did something new with this piece, I used water color, I had fun with this new medium and fining out the best ways to make it work. Water color is an unusual medium on clay, but builds well and gives it a whole new texture and look that glaze and acrylic can not. I really enjoyed working with new materials, and have even more fun when they turn out well. For the final project I really don't remember doing one with all of the snow days I think it just didn't get done. I'm pretty sure i just moved into doing the animal head. I don't have any pictures at the moment but will put one up the next time I am at school.
For the styrogami I wasn't really sure where I was going with it, I thought if I just started cutting the cup something would come to me. I cut different shapes into it and cut some parts completely off of the cup. My biggest problem was thinking of what I could do with it, it seemed like there were so many options that it was overwhelming. I wanted to make something cool and original, and it wasn't super original, but I thought it looked cool and it was something I made on my own. If I were to do this again I would do more research on what I could do and defiantly plan more.
I only have one picture of it... and I'm not exactly sure where it is at the moment. Sorry for the lack of angles!
Artist taking risks: I started off making an elephant head which didnt work out and ended up looking like a walrus. I went on the internet and looked up pictures of walruses and went from there hoping that it would work. I also painted it with brown watercolor which is a medium i've never used on clay before. The water color worked out really well and gave it more of a skin-like texture. Sometimes taking risks can be scary but I felt that it was beneficial in the end. Artist solve problems: Like I mentioned before, I started off making an elephant, but I wasnt happy with the way it looked. I made jokes about it looking like a walrus, and ended up deciding to make it into one. It accurately represented a walrus head, even though that wasnt my initial intention.