Natalie G11 & 12 Artist Portfolio '15 - '17

Inspiration:

        At first, this unit was not something that I was particularly excited about because I like making my art look pretty, and the first thing I thought of when the word “grotesque” came up were goblins and griffins, which all kind of scare me. But when we were brainstorming 20 mammals and 20 living things and turning them into hybrid animals, I actually started to get excited about it. I learnt that grotesque basically means a hybrid animal, it doesn’t have to be scary or look bad.

 

         I don’t really know where my inspiration for these ideas came from. For the mammals and living creatures, I was basically writing down anything that I like or anything that came to mind, So I guess my inspiration were my favourite things. I love puppies, peonies are my favourite flowers and swans are my favourite birds. So I guess as we were doing a hybrid sculpture, my favourite animals and living creatures are my inspiration, like the “sheony” which is a sheep with fur of peonies and the “puwan” which is a hybrid of a puppy and a swan.

 

         I think that this is a bit ironic as well, because all the animals that I came up with, were either cute or really girly, which is something that you normally wouldn’t think about when you think about grotesque.

 

        I think that I was actually inspired by Swan Lake as well. Especially as the costumes are amazing. They look really beautiful and delicate, so I think that was a bit of my inspiration for the wings of my “puwan".

 

Investigation:

        Before we started to design our hybrid animal sculptures, we had to do a bit of research before we could start. We researched about gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures first. They had to come from different cultures, but of course I had to include a unicorn, a fairy, and a love story legend. The fairy that I researched was called an Anjana which is a spanish version of the fairy. I actually found this quite interesting because we all know of these different creatures especially like the unicorn, the fairy and so on. So it is interesting to see what culture it actually comes from, and the different variations of it from different cultures. Like how fairies are part of a lot of cultures yet they are all a little bit different from the other versions.

 

        We also researched different goblets from different cultures again so we can get inspired by them to create our own sculpture made from our own hybrid animals and our own ideas. This was actually quite interesting as well because I never thought that there were so many different cultures that have some history with goblets. When I think of goblets, I normally just think European, but I didn’t know that sometimes, goblets from different parts of Europe looked different. For example, in my sketchbook , I researched a spanish goblet and an english goblet. The both look quite different from each other, but somehow it works well together.

 

         I think that this might be like trying to put two different living creature together. Even unlike things which are total opposites can live together really happily.

 

Experiment:

         After we finished brainstorming ideas for different hybrid animals, we had to pick four of our ideas and experiment with these ideas, what do we want to keep from both animals and so on. I know that I can be quite stubborn about things at times so I didn’t really experiment much, because I knew what I wanted out of my ideas. I knew which parts from which animals that I wanted to use before I even started to draw it out.

 

         But a while after this, when we were drawing our blueprints, I was able to experiment a bit more on what position to place the animal in. I knew that because all of my animals ended up having four legs, it would be stable enough for the sculpture to be able to stay standing, but I believe that it would be safer if I had the hybrid animal sitting down. As my final sculpture ended up to be a puwan, I decided to make the puppy’s legs as if he/she was lying down, stretching.

 

         Also, after we coloured our sculptures all black and we were ready to antique our sculpture, we had a palette with dried black paint on it, so I was able to experiment with different types of strokes and use paper towel and brushes to create the effect I wanted with the silver paint.

 

Select:

         This stage took a while longer to complete. In the beginning we selected our top 4 sculptures out or the twenty that we came up with. Then we selected two, and then finally cut it down to one.

 

        At first, I was totally ready to make a sheony out of newspaper. Even with all the delicate peonies, But when I talked to Ms. Lovett, she suggested that I test it out at home first before I start to do anything because it might not hold up and the texture might be ruined. I first, I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by paper mache the flowers, but in the end I understood when we started to cover our sculptures with paper mache.

 

        When I got home, I tested it out, and it didn’t go very well. The newspaper wasn’t sticking together and the newspaper is so easily ripped. it just didn’t work. So I had to find another hybrid animal that I wanted to do. At first, we even tried to use deeoral, but the same situation came up. Deeoral coral would be really hard to paper mache.

 

         So I had to pick another hybrid. At first, I was really reluctant because I didn’t think, I had another idea that I liked. But then I saw in my list that I had written Puwan. And I actually started to get excited about making a swan out of paper mach.e. So it turned out to be a good thing.

 

Develop:

         The next step after picking q hybrid animal is to develop an image from your description. I took some inspiration from pictures online. Just really basic ones like what a swan actually looked like. I knew the basics but I needed the actual shape, and also how a dog’s paw look like. To me, the development is a crucial stage, because if you get something wrong but figure it out later on, it might be too late.

 

         I just kept refining my sketches, but not too much, because our actual project is creating the goblet. So I didn’t refine my puwan sketch by too much, but I still had to fit the details like the feathers and the paws, and also the shape of the hole.

 

Plan:

         For us, the planning stage was the blueprint. This wasn’t too hard as most of the sculpture is supposed to be made from newspaper and masking tape. I planned to use newspaper and masking tape for basically everything. I also had a wire for support as the shape of the neck be really hard to create, and also I’m not sure if a neck without any wire can support the head of the swan as it is surprisingly heavy for something that is made out of newspapers and paper products.

 

          Something that Eve did which was a really good idea was to take a paper cup and cut a hole in it. I thought it was such a good idea and that it would be really useful to me as the shape of the “cup” part of the goblet is really hard to find. Making your own hole seems a lot more convenient. I could always stuff it to get the slope that I want.

 

Create:

        When it was finally time to create our sculpture, I was really excited that we finally got to start. The first part I did was the neck as it seemed to be the most complicated section. I ended up spending a lot of time on it just to make sure it turned out thick enough. It took me a long time as the edges of the newspapers kept coming up and there were air bubbles in-between layers, so I had to keep trying to get rid of them.

 

         The second section would be the feather. At first I was wrapping each individual ‘feather” with newspaper, and then wrap it all over again with tape. Ms. Lovett suggested that I cut up a bunch of newspaper first and the stick the masking tape like three times and then trim it so the shape is like a feather. This would be quite fast and she was right again about it begin a lot quicker than just individually wrapping all of the feathers.

 

         The cup is next. It took me a while for the cup to be ready. I had to cut out a lot to make the cup even. I had to seal the holes I didn’t want with masking tape and I stuffed the inside with newspaper to get the shape that I wanted. And then I had to cover it with masking tape again. But this went pretty smoothly, nothing went wrong.

 

          Then comes the paper mache. Paper mache is quite fun, you are basically sticking on newspaper to something with liquid glue. It was quite easy as you just had to follow the lines of your base. You can get creases and it will still maintain the shape of the clothing.

 

          Finally comes the painting. Painting the sculpture black was easy. We had big brushes an the paint dried really quickly. It was the silver paint that I had a bit of a problem with. On the first day when we were starting to paint the sculpture with the antique colors,, I had antiqued mine, and I thought that it looked pretty nice. But when I came back from winter break, my sculpture seemed way, way to silver. There is only one thing to do and that’s do it at home. I had to bring some black paint home, and what I did was I crumpled a piece of paper towel and dab at the black paint. On my actual sculpture, I did short twisted strokes in order to get the lightly antiqued feel. But in the end, I finished, and I think that it looks pretty good. So I’m quite happy with that.

 

Evaluate:

          For this unit I would give myself an 8 out of 10 because I feel that I did quite well with the actual sculpting, I believe that I put a lot of effort and time into creating them so I did something different that most people wouldn’t think of like using something so gentle for a grotesque unit. I also think that my sculpting skills have really grown since the beginning of the year. I find it quite easy now. I find that if you just know the basic skill for paper mache and sculpting using newspaper and masking tape, a lot of sculpting would be quite easy as you know the basic techniques.. But I put an 8 because I feel that I didn’t do the antiquing as well as I would have wanted to. I might be just noticing details, and being a perfectionist, but I feel like there are just too many splotches on my sculpture instead of strokes. Therefore, I would give myself an 8.

 

Response:

           I think that this unit has been interesting and fun at the same time. It is interesting because I have been interested in greek gods and goddesses for sometime, so it was really cool to learn about not only them, but other legends, and mystical creatures from other cultures. It was also nice to see the difference between the goblets of different cities and cultures. I also think that this unit helps you develop certain techniques especially being gentle. Antiquing your sculpture trains you to develop a skill for a gentle hand. So this trains you for future art projects where you have to be quite gentle with the art piece(s).

 

          This unit was fun because we could get our hands a bit dirty and do things hands on. Especially since I’ve never actually made proper paper mache before. It knew what it was, I’ve just never done it myself, so this unit was really interesting and fun for me as I’ve learned quite a few new techniques.

 

           Overall, this was a nice unit that made us actually get messy and just have fun with it. I normally don’t really like messy projects, but this is an exception. This was a great and fun unit.