Portrait Releif

This is a relief of my brother I created using copper wire and circuit boards. The assignment for this piece was to make a three dimensional portrait or relief of somebody using a material which related to that person. I chose copper wire and circuit boards for this relief of my brother because he is interested in engineering and building and disassembling things with moving parts.

To create this relief I first painted a piece of foam board (which I used for my base) with copper paint so that any part that I didn't cover with materials would be a uniform color. Then I used thick copper wire to sculpt the shapes for my brother's nose, chin, and forehead protruding from the foamboard. I spent the majority of my time on this piece on the next step which was applying the small strands of copper wire for the surface of his face and for his hair. I used large bunches of small strands to cover more surface area and used hot glue to apply them. Some of the wire I had was black and I used that to create the shadows which appeared in my reference photo. This addition helped establish the contours of his face. Finally I used assorted wires and circuit board to create the different values of the background. Probably the most important element of design in this piece is texture. I think the small stands of wire were very effective in creating a realistic texture, especially for the hair. I also used a variety of materials—and therefor textures—for the background which not only created diversity but also help provide contrast. I think the sense of unity in this piece is somewhat inherent to the assignment, but I like that all my materials are wire or electricity related and it does unify the piece. This project evolved in that at the start, I imagined making the entire face pop off of the foam board, but as I progressed in the process I realized that doing that would require much more time and materials, so I settled for shaping the nose, forehead, and chin. The hair also protrudes more because of the layers of wire.

This project relates to my life because it is a relief of my brother and we share a lot of interests. I think this piece could be stronger if the facial features were more detailed and accurate and if there was less hot glue showing. because there were a lot of strands of copper wire, I needed to use a lot of hot glue to hold it down and it is more visible than I would like in some places. The most challenging parts of this piece were finding the right colors of wire to use in different places, and spreading the strands of wire evenly over the face. I am most proud of the hair which I think realistically surrounds the face and has effective coloration. This piece illustrates my strength as an artist in my ability to effectively choose a material to represent my subject which strengthens a three dimensional piece. It shows weakness in lack of detail in places and less accuracy than I would have liked.