Create > Abstract Portrait

Create > Abstract Portrait

Goal:  Create a reduction sculpture that is an abstract portrait

Catalysts:  Subtract, abstract, symbolize

Studio Activity:

Create a portrait of a meaningful person.  Consider two elements: 1) An object which symbolizes the person’s interest or hobby, and 2) The image of the person.  Fuse the two elements to produce an abstracted symbolic sculpture.  

1. Start by making sketches of the human form.  
2. Research and view other sculptor’s work for examples of ways to represent the human form in a freestanding sculpture.  
3. Make a plaster mound.  
4. Make more preliminary sculptures each abstracting your human form.  
5. Start carving your  abstracted human form out of your plaster mound.

Artist Profile:

Be inspired by Barbara Hepworth > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth was an English sculptor exemplifying Modernism.  Barbara created abstractions that investigated ‘absence’ in sculpture as much as ‘presence’ and the deep considerations of the relationship of her sculptural forms to the larger spaces surrounding it.  Her sculpture forms tend to possess clean lines of modernist aesthetics that she complicated with different textures and tactile sensations.  Her works grew out ideas connecting the human figure with aspects of nature - “All my sculptures come out of landscape”    

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hepworth-barbara-artworks.htm#pnt_3

Artist Profile:

Be inspired by Henry Moore > https://www.wikiart.org/en/henry-moore Henry Moore was an English sculptor that explored the theme of mothers and children - inspired by the birth of a daughter.  He is best known for his abstract human figures made of bronze.  Moore’s works are suggestive of reclining figures and female forms.  The sculptures make use of negative space or hollow spaces to depict aspects of solid form.  The undulating form of his reclining figures switch in the mind between human-like forms to landscapes of rolling hills and back again.

  

Create > Emotion Box

Create > Emotion Box

Goal:  Assemble found object to symbolize emotions.

Catalysts:  

Symbolism, connections, emotions  

Studio Activity:  

Find a box that has compartments such as a spice box, tackle box or sewing container or make a shallow compartmentalized box of cardboard or wood.  Within each compartment carefully arrange objects, images, textures, found objects, parts of mechanical devices, texts, poetry, calligraphy and collage pieces from magazines or newspapers.  Arrange, alter and combine the elements within each compartment to signify a human emotion.  For example a twisted ribbon might signify love or a relationship or pieces of broken mirror glued over a photograph m ight signify anxiety or a compartment painted blue with cotton balls glued on might signify peacefulness or a mouse trap with a snared gummy bear might signify accomplishment or a piece a drift would with rusted nails might signify serenity.

Artist Profile:

Be inspired by the works of Joseph Cornell > https://www.wikiart.org/en/joseph-cornell

The box is the central metaphor of Joseph Cornell’s life.  He made boxes to keep wonders in.  He used a multitude of found objects representing expansiveness and flight, penned inside cases expressing a simultaneous tension between freedom and constraint.

Be inspired by Artist Allison May Kiphuth > http://www.allisonmaykiphuth.com/

Allison captures scenes inspired by her emotional and physical attachment to her surroundings at home in Maine along the sea coast.  The imagery is a metaphor expressing those emotional and physical attachments to the natural environment.  Her mixed media dioramas are constructed from layered ink and watercolor illustrations assembled with pins and strings.

Visual Examples: