Relief Sculpture

For our second sculpture assignment, we had a lot of freedom with what object we were going to be recreating and what material we wanted to use. The material, however, had to relate to that object, place, or person. For my subject, I wanted to do my ukulele, and I related coffee mugs to that object because I typically drink coffee or tea while playing. Finally, I decided to make a mosaic out of ceramic mugs that would represent my ukulele.

To start, I collected several different mugs of different color and broke them under a towel with a hammer. Once I broke all of the mugs, I picked out the pieces that were good enough to make a mosaic with. I cleared off the towel and arranged the pieces how I liked, including the ukulele and the white border. I numbered each piece so that in class the next day, I could arrange them the same way.

The next day in class, I glued together two wooden pieces to be my base. I used a thing layer of tile adhesive and painted it over the base. Then, I arranged the pieces down on my base the same way I had done at home and let it dry completely for two days. After seeing it in this state, I knew that it was kind of boring and needed more dimension and color. So, I went to Salvation Army and bought two plates with a blue landscape design and broke them to make a colored border. I used the adhesive to make the border and waited for it to dry before grouting.

I used white grout and piped it through the tiles using a plastic bag and my fingers. To smooth it out, I used a damp sponge and wiped off extra grout from the tiles. Once it was dry, my project was complete. I am very happy with how my relief sculpture turned out, as I challenged my artistic ability and did something unique.