Wire Sculpture

For this project we bounced out of the box of 2D objects and began to explore the world of creating 3D sculptures. To start this project and to get used to using 18 gage wire we started by making a chain. This chain had to be made out of ten pieces of wire that were only held together by "fish hook" connections. This type of connection is created by bending a piece of wire over it self to create a hook and then using pliers shutting the hook around it self to hold pieces of wire together. The goal of making this chain was to practice getting tight fish hook connections, so tight that it would allow the tower of wire pieces to stand up. Once we had gotten familiar with the wire and pliers we were using for this project we moved on to the next small piece of this project. That was building a box, the purpose of this was to create a box that stood on its own and was only created using fish hook connections. Once finished with the box we moved on the main part of this project, creating something using a reference.

For this part of the project I decided to make a turtle, I began with making the shell. As an artist I struggle with creating fine lines and little texture. So I wanted my turtle to be interesting and have texture and value, I did this by using the smaller wire and rapping it around to create this. After I created the shell I moved on the legs I did this by using spirals of wire to create circular tubs as legs. Finally I put it all together and added the finishing touches with the thin wire. For the second thing that I created I wanted to stretch myself out of my art comfort zone and attempt to create something more pure contour than the turtle. I started to make a skull, although as i'm sure you can tell by the pictures it didn't work. I started building the skull from the bottom up, and then ended with having the top of the skull be flat rather than round.

Over the course of this project I ran into many problems, the biggest thing that caused issues for me was just the way it looked. I didn't like the way the wire never seemed to be straight, I found this frustrating because it seemed that all the time something was getting messed up. I also didn't like way that the wire made everything feel empty it made it me want to fill it all in with wire! Overall I definitely struggled with this project, it was something that didn't flow with what I liked to do and was frustrating to figure out. I think this project was definite a stretch in my art and although it was not one of the projects I enjoyed I do think I learned a lot about what I like to do as an artist and what I need to do to get better at wire sculpting.