Ben Young's glass waves are easily my favorite current project so far. The combination of concrete and glass make an interesting method in making seascapes. According to his website, brokenliquid.com, he grew up in Waihi Beach, which is the source of inspiration for these sculptures. He is currently based in Australia. He has been working with glass for 10 years. Often, his sculptures involve him using flat pieces of glass, placing them together and carving them in such a way that they form a 3-D shape.
To start off the figurative unit, I decided to a face. Since I felt that a full head would be too difficult at the time, I decided to only do the face. While it is a little long, the nose is easily the best part. It was a little flat with no emphasis on the cheeks and mouth. I also feel that the eyes weren't exactly done right, as they were carved rather than painted. I feel that this project was a warm up to the main project I'm doing, a head of myself.
The first major project I did was of a mermaid made out of cardboard. First, I carved the front part, the mermaid sitting on the stone. The basic outline was all that was needed, then the rock layer was taken off to make it appear as though the mermaid were sitting on it. The process of making the sailor behind the rock was done the same way as the mermaid was done. After that, the mermaid piece was placed on top of the sailor piece. The most difficult part was carving along the curves of both figures, with their fingers and heads. It was difficult to do it especially with parts of the mermaid over the rock, as the fingers couldn't be part of the rock. I feel that my success with this piece was the dimension given in the layers and the shading on both pieces. I feel that this piece was a success overall given how the dimension looks.
To start off the relief unit, I carved an image of mountains out of cardboard. Relief requires the distance to be demonstrated by cutting further into the medium, so the farthest part, the sky, was the deepest part. The do the clouds, one of the closest things, I tore off a thin layer of the top layer of the cardboard. This left a lighter layer than the rest of the image, which helps the clouds stand out more. The second thing I did was a clay tile. I decided to do a human face to ready myself for the final project. To start, I carved out the empty space around the face. Following that, I carved the details. such as the cheekbones, lips, nose, etc. I didn't have time to glaze the piece, but I feel that the final result is a satisfying start.
With our first day, most of us had little prior experience with sculpting. To start, a styrofoam cup was carved out to make something. My something was a face, a joker to be more specific. The trick was to make sure the cup was balanced and didn't fall over. To do the nose, I made a small hole in the center of the face, and made the nose from excess styrofoam left over after carving out the rest. I think that this was a pretty good start for the semester, hopefully this will lead to better things.
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