Sculpture: Project 1

Here are photos of the first project that we did in my Sculpture I class, I've done a couple of smaller mockups but they weren't really worth posting here. My teacher changed this assignment from her usual, we were the guinea pigs.

Instead of doing one large project, you instead had to do many little body parts (no bigger than 5" in all dimensions) using different techniques that were on a list. The thought was to be able to discover new media/ways of construction as well as what you like/don't like to do. You could do human or animal body parts, I did a mix.

Since I'm not a freshmen and have been doing most of this stuff for a long time, I already know a lot of techniques and I know what I like/don't like to do. And after all this work with plaster, I can tell you that I do NOT like working with it! I don't like touching it, and I definitely don't like breathing the dust. Even after I wash my hands a million times, I still feel grody from it!

So we had to accumulate a lot of images as a reference when making these parts, that was called the Visual Morgue. Kindof a cool name, no? Maybe that's what I'll name my band. Ha ha. Sorry if these images gross you out, I'm kindof desensitized by now since I have been looking at tables of crafted body parts all semester!

Clockwise, top left: Carved tooth from block of plaster, fabric & yarn make skin and hair, two part mold and the foil butterfly positive, paper casting from found object, yarn muscle fibers

Wire mesh lungs sewn and stapled, a nueron riveted from a piece of milk jug and sheet metal with beads for a tail:
Here's looking at you: Eyes paper mache'd, cast in plaster, sewn (I stuffed a yo-yo and my teacher loved it!), and a polygon shape:

Red blood cell, alginate mold of my (flattened) finger, alginate mold of plastic flamingo head, press clay mold/plaster positive of lips, wire mesh coated with plaster and painted to look like lips:

You also had to do a photo or a film or audio (in reality sculpture encompasses EVERYTHING in art) so I submitted this print out of my face- back at my other college I had to color and place EVERY square (in the computer) in my pixelated face! It's based off of one of my senior pics:

It's nice to have this project done, it wasn't so bad at first but then got real tedious. We had critique today and I got a B+, which is pretty good considering two of my pieces didn't really turn out (not photographed). Most of my classmates were not very inspired and didn't do very good stuff, though a few did. On to project number two!