these are the 6 maquettes that i made for my fundamentos escultora class, we were asked to produce over a hundred small sketches for ideas and then, create a minimum of 6 of them into maquettes, carved out of polystyrene. the brief was that they just had to be very organic forms. these ideas were loosely based on drawings that i did from the window photographs.
 i had to choose one to transform into wood, the one i want to make, has to be encased between two sheets of plastic, held together with nuts and long bolts. this frame acts as the the outline of the block of wood, helping us to see what we need to remove. the models are 21cm tall x 10 x10cm, which is to scale with our wood.

processos tecnicos escultora initial idea presentation

In this project I am agagin using the window photographs as a stimulus, but  im looking for a different approach to explore.

I saw these sculptures in retiro park, by spanish sculptor Jose G omnieva. The rusted iron gave a real autumnal feeling magnified by all the orange and golden leaves falling from the other trees. These trees also move in the wind, they rotate and wobble from side to side, it is quite an elegant movement for such large and imposing stuctures.

•I was thinking alot about the reflections, when I saw these tree sculptures it made me think about the reflective properties of trees.

•They reflect the conditions they are presented with, if it is dry the leaves will yellow, when wet new growth will accelerate, and the leaves will move to maximise light intake.

•We also associate trees directly with the seasons, when leaves turn brown its autumn, trees are bare its winter, and new growth is spring.

• I discovered that we have a mirror in our house that gives a similar effect to the windows that I saw.

•It is slightly concave therefore from close up it magnifies the image and from a distance it blurs and distorts the image.

• I think it could be interesting to use this effect that interested me in a sculpture rather than working from it.

•This was an initial sketch of my idea.

• I thought that the mirrors could reflect the sparse foliage creating a full and dense looking tree.

• from a distance I was hoping that the mirrors would create the blurred and organic shapes creating interesting forms and reflecting the surroundings.

•The nature of the swivelling mirror would allow me to position each pane, to create the best effect.

•I was also toying with the idea of placing it in a room, with 4 large painted panels each representing the colours of a different season, therefore as you walk around it, it would appear to go through its annual cycle as the different colours are reflected in the mirrors.

•The maquette displays the technique I intend to use, the round metal discs will be the mirrors.

•So I intend to buy about 5 and use as much of each one as possible so its all made of this kind of stainless steel.

The mirrors are also double sided so the sculpture would work from every angle.

painting project presentation

This image for me is the starting point to my project, it has had me thinking about what theme I could draw from it to create some personal guidelines for the project.

These paintings are small studdies of the windows, my original thoughts wee that simply copying the images out onto a large canvas would create very striking paintings. But after doing these studdies it made me think that  maybe the power of the original images were that they were are bizzare phenomenon and towering over the plaza in ten foot windows. Simply painting from them would just create fairly random abstract faces. I  plan to isolate some of individual windows into photographs and have them printed out in an a3 sized format.

I decided that I wanted to experiment further with the images and try to take from it some compositional ideas. I really like all the sections of twisted lines in the photographs, i think they are distorted reflections of the metal balconies. This form intrigued me particularly  as it seems to resemble a seated figure, an i particularly like the mixture of thick and thin lines as well as the mix of the straight and curved.

I wanted to copy this image as firstly I think it works better as a  painting because it doesn't directly resemble a face, also the presence of the complementary colours  really works for me.  The painting reminds me of a desert scene with sand dunes and an oasis. But it also contains a Dali-esque feel to it.

This  picture has a very bold appearance, i especially like the strong contrast between the whites, and greys with the strong blue behind.  I want to take this aesthetic and utilise it within some paintings, as a guideline

In this painting i followed the colour scheme of the previous image and elaborated on the form slightly creating a slightly more fluid form. i painted it from a small sketch that i made, which had a completely abstract intentions. But when i finished it, i couldn't stop thinking that it resembled a cow! How ever I think this only reconfirms the theme of the photographs where you cant help but  see faces in the reflections.

This  painting again I have followed the colour scheme of the  previous photograph, but  I have created a more elaborate pattern.

 I did initially intend  to create  the peacock as I thought  some of the sketches I did resembles peacock feathers. I chose to cut it out of a separate piece of paper as  I think it helps to refrain it from getting lost in the background.

 im not  dure if the reference to the peacock is too direct maybe i  should have  made a more subtle reference.