Relief Project

This is a portrait of my older sister, Sophia, made out of dried roses. Sophia and I are two years apart and grew up super close with each other. Though she is now at college in Chicago, she remains my best friend and is an extremely influential person in my life so when thinking about someone important to me to create for my relief, she was an immediate choice. A popular decoration in Sophia's room is dried roses. Every time she was given flowers she'd put them up to dry in her room and then hang them on her walls. Because of this, I associate dried roses with her and felt it would be perfect to make her portrait out of.

To create this relief I used dried roses from sophia herself, Elmer's liquid glue, foam core, and scissors.

To begin, I printed an 8x11 inch photo of Sophia that I took of her over the summer and transferred it onto the foam core by scribbling graphite on the back and drawing over the front with a hard lead pencil. I then began cutting the rose petals to fit certain areas of the face, using the darker/lighter sides of the petal to create shadows and highlights. For the hair, I used small, flexible twigs that kind of look like a mess of tangled hair. At this point I knew I needed a background and a stronger aspect of the project that would make it a relief, so I used the stems of the roses and glued them to the foam to create what looks like a wooden wall or fence. Also, to unify the stems and the petals used to create the portrait, I punched holes through the foam board and cut several roses at their bases, then stuck and glued them through the holes. If I were to continue this project, I would fill up the negative space with more roses or petals, and I would add the hair last because it was difficult to work around once it was glued down.