3D Design

   Clay Alginate Hand Sculpture   Sustained Investigation 1 

In what ways does your work illustrate your strengths and weaknesses as a learner?

Art is something that continues to guide us through the world wherever we go. As we grow older we can keep experiencing new things which can further our understandings of our surroundings and help us grow. 

When I originally started 3-D Design I did not know how challenging it would be. My ability to be creative comes more spontaneously and I am still learning to better summon it when it is needed. I see now that it is going to take more time for me to get better at this skill, but the more I continue to do these projects I believe I will be able to improve and summon my more creative side with greater frequency and power. 

Another weakness is being able to iterate more on my own rather than always checking in with others. I have been much more independent with my artwork this semester, but often I would have moments where I would need to check in with the teacher and my parents to ask them if what I am doing is right, instead of just working on my own first before getting feedback further on in my projects. Despite some of these weaknesses I have honed some great skills that I perform at a higher level than before. This included being able to work with wire, alginate casting, clay sculpting, sculpting with paper and using LEGO for freebuilds and in more creative ways. One of my strengths that helped in this class is my determination. I have had moments where I have always wanted to make my artwork the best it can be even in tough circumstances. Were it not for my high determination I feel like I might have come up short.

I feel my artwork has become more sophisticated. I have learned to use materials in combination with each other, and I have experimented with kinetic approaches such as my eye contact sculpture which featured rotating busts as well as my LEGO mobile. 

As for  my use of LEGOs, this was the first time I broke through my comfort zone and used LEGOs to create my own ideas. I look forward now to doing more "freebuild" work with LEGOs rather then only building official sets using their instructions. Likewise, I have now learned to use paper to create interesting 3-D projects like my duck and a weird looking bridge. I also got to work with clay more which I really enjoy and this builds upon skills I had previously learned in Ceramics I. 

Overall these skills, and being more comfortable summoning my creativity is going to help me significantly at college in all my subjects although I also look forward to taking more art.

- What was the most challenging project and why? 

The project that was the most challenging for me would have to be the alginate hands sculpture. Making alginate and plaster casting was a whole new process for me. I had to figure out what position my hands should be and have them be still for a little while. Being still is hard! 

Once you had your hands plaster casted and you didn't like the way it turned out then you cannot change that. That was definitely a hard thing for me as when I saw the way my hands turned out I ended up not liking their position. But I knew I had to figure out something creative to make out of them. In hindsight I think I should have tried to think more about the final form before I cast my hands.

At first I thought of making a mineshaft with crystals and bits of iron coming out of the inside of the hand, but I eventually found out that would be relatively difficult for me to create so after a lot of thinking. Then my second attempt to modify it went very poorly and I had to completely start over. Finally, I decided to show the scaley hands holding a snake. Overall I feel the work didn't end up quite the way I wanted it to, but that was okay because the project will always remind me that what comes later can be affected by what I choose to do earlier in a multi-stage project.

-What project are you most proud of and why?

The project I am most proud of is my Sustained Investigation #2. This was when I was able to combine my LEGO skills with my clay skills. Though this sustained investigation was completely different from my first sustained investigation I was still able to get a lot of feedback and critique to make my second one so much better. This was also the first type of project where I did not get any inspiration online so I had to really put some time into what I wanted to accomplish. 

I wanted to illustrate my neurodiversity more clearly than I did with my first project. I choose to deal with something that impacts my life everyday: eye contact. Eye contact is something I and others with autism struggle with everyday so I thought to depict this trait. I imagined four heads looking away from each rotating in different directions where none ever end up making direct eye contact with each other at any point.  The hard part about this project was the gears kept getting jammed which required me to make some adjustments such as only having three heads rotate instead of four. This turned out nicely in the end because they could fully rotate. One of the things I loved about this project was at the end I blended in LEGO tiles in a checkerboard pattern using colors that I think ended up helping the piece a lot. This bit of polish was directly related to the fact that I had a good idea, started early, and had time to add it before I was completed.

-What are your artistic goals for the summer/future?

I am still going to experiment with clay and LEGOs as well as new forms of materials that I have not really worked with. I have a big interest in using seaglass which I search for each summer. I was going to take AP 3-D design next year, but because I continue to struggle with getting things done on time I have decided to keep my workload easier next year and instead will explore creative writing which I know will be helped by my creative efforts in 3D design and art. I also am planning to learn 3D printing which my brother is becoming an expert in. We're getting a 3D printer and he's going to show me how to use it.  I'm also going to be learning ArcGIS to make maps and I'm sure my art experience will be helpful in that as well.

I do hope to become more independent in the future with the way I plan out my art and to not always ask for guidance which is something that I really struggle with. Currently I want to major in geography which is why I plan on taking AP Art History. I am interested in studying how humans think in relationship to where they live and AP Art History will certainly help with that and much more.