Relief Portrait

For this project I made a relief portrait of my brother Owen out of hockey tape. This is a 3D portrait, and it has multiple layers, which makes it a relief portrait. I used both black and white hockey tape, and I stuck it onto a small block of wood. To create the texture in the face I rolled up the tape and applied it, and I put the tape on flat for the background. I chose to make this because I thought it would be interesting to use hockey tape as a material, and Owen loves hockey. One element of art I used was texture. I used the rolled the tape to create an interesting texture that was different from the background. One principle of design I used was contrast because the black and white tape contrasted each other.

One composition rule and technique I used was formal balance. I centered Owen's face on the wood and which made it balanced. My project evolved a lot over the course of it, mostly due to peer feedback. My classmates said I should add a few things to my project when I had it almost done. One thing I did was differentiate the background from the hair. At first it was all textured, but then I added the tape flat on top to make the hair and background different. Another thing I did was add tape on the outside edges of the wood, so it looked more complete. Also I made the nose protruding from the face and the eyebrows and mouth as well to make it more 3D.

I made this portrait of Owen because he is my twin brother and best friend and he means a lot to me. I made it out of hockey tape because it represents him and how he plays and loves hockey. If I could've made this stronger I probably would've made it come off of the wood more so I would've added more layers of tape to it. I also would've liked to find a way to add more contrast to this by using a shade or two of grey with other colored tape. I'm proud of how I was able to make this look like my brother using just hockey tape. The hardest part of this project was getting it to look realistic, especially only with hockey tape which is hard to make details with. This shows my strengths and weaknesses as a learner because I was able to effectively use a new material.