Woman

The Project

For the final project in 3D sculpture, we were asked to research an artist, find a piece, and write a description. Then the professor would take the description and give them out to other students. With just the description, you would have to envision what the sculpture looked like and make it.

My description was as follows:

Feminine pregnant body. Plush. Rough texture. Anonymity. Armless. Lifeless. Juxtapose. Sharp Spider legs protruding. Smooth. Jointed. Sharp contrast to body. Quirky. Female Spirit. Visceral. 

The Idea & Planning

With this in mind I sketched out my idea. I envisioned a pregnant woman with no arms or head with a spider legs without feet. To make the statue, I would use panty-hoes and cover the body with that to give it a plush living look. This idea was suggested to me by another student in my class that remembered works by Rosa Verloop. 

In order to fabricate the whole sculpture, I would have to create a wire frame, then cover that with panty-hoes. Then pin the panty-hoes to the frame to give it contour. After that I would hot glue stuffing to the body to give it some muscle and size, so it wouldn't have wire show through. Then I would have two more layers of Panty-hoes and sew the seams together to make the final piece. Below are some photos of the making process.

A piece done by Rosa Verloop

A piece done by Rosa Verloop

During the research I found a sculpture that resembled my vision.

Sketches of my idea

In Progress

Finished

Details

This is the actual sculpture the description was based off of. 

 Sculpture by Louise Bourgeois.

Cubist Sculpture

Cubist Sculpture

Using a Cubist Painting as the point of departure, we were asked to construct a three-dimensional sculpture completely out of wood utilizing the concepts of Cubism. 

Excerpt from prompt:
Research a Cubist painting and choose a group of objects form a specific work. The piece will be constructed to resemble the original painting. Because of the nature of a two-dimensional rendering of anything, and the translation of it into a 3-D form, you will have to make some intelligent assumption an conclusions about how it exists and thus how it is made. Think in terms of creating space and form using two dimensional planes. 

For this project, I chose to a still life by Roy Lichtenstein.

Planning

In the planning phase of the project, I researched both cubist paintings and sculptures to grasp the ideology behind cubism. After that, I broke down the original image into planes and sketched out some designs. With a rough idea I went into Maya and made a simple 3D model of my sculpture. I did this so I can visualize how the plains would match up with one-another and work together. 

Making

This project was roughly three weeks of work, all of which was done mostly in the wood shop. For supplies, most it was made from half a sheet of 1/2 in plywood, 2x4, 2x2, and scraps. For tools, most of the work was done with the bandsaw, dremel, and sanders. Producing this piece was more difficult than I had imagined. Due to the nature of the piece and wanting it to be painted precisely, I would have to cut every piece and then paint it individually without assembly. So going into the final few days, I had roughly 20+ pieces that where all separate from each other. The problems that I faced in the last few days of painting and assembly was that I wouldn't be able to adhere the panels that I envisioned in the renders, because it would have been nearly impossible. As a result, I added a back and made compromises in the design. Below are a couple of photos and a time lapse of the painting and assembly process. 

Final product

Unfortunately this piece is still on display in Hopkins Hall so these were the only photographs I have of it.