Plaster Hand

This assignment was to make a plaster hand, which is your own, and then turn it into anything. The subject of my creation is a hand holding on to nature, or a flower in this case. My work was made by first creating a mold by creating a mixture, putting my hand in it, and then filling it with plaster. At first my hand mold didn't come out well because the liquid for the mold started drying so it was chunky. So I did that process over again. I then painted my hand green using watercolor. I wanted the details to still pop so I only did one coat and I like the patchy green look it has. I then added clay pieces, that are baked, onto the hand in a position so it looks like my hand it holding a flowers. I glued the pieces onto the hand using super glue. I then painted a wooden base to look like a landscape and I glued the hand to the base. In this piece I love how how well the colors matched with the hand and the wooden, painted base.

I chose to create this specific artwork because I love nature and I try to incorporate nature into as many pieces as I can. It’s arranged by having a nature hand being in the center of a landscape. How my project evolved was at first I created a flower with long petals but it wasn't stable so I did a different flower, eventually I had re-done my flower at least 4 times. I also kept re-doing the mountain on the landscape image I painted on the wooden base. I kept mixing the colors too dark so I would let it dry and paint over it. I revised my artwork by persevering and finally got the results I wanted for my flower. I also ended up placing the hand on the mountain, in the center, so the appearance of the mountain didn't matter in the end.

The meaning behind my artwork is that we are apart of this environment, we are apart of nature so we shouldn't let go of it. We should take care of nature because we can't live without it. How my artwork relates to my life is because I love the environment and I want to make a change one day to improve how we treat our planet and the organisms on it. So I love to create pieces that incorporate nature because I can express myself. What I'm most proud of in my artwork is even though my flowers kept coming out the way I didn't want, I didn't give up and I love the simple look of these flowers. I struggled with figuring out what to paint on my base. I knew I wanted to paint a landscape but I didn't know which colors would be best. But I overcome these struggles by trying out certain colors and they ended up matching just the way I wanted. My artwork could be stronger if I added even more flowers that are more diverse. But overall I really love the simple natural look this piece gives off.