Assemblage 

The idea behind this work was to make a sort of dancing figure with papermached "skin" to show some elements of a human. I wanted to put images on this figure that showed human interests, represented anatomical features, and depict the mental struggle through colors, shapes and images. I originally wanted this to be a very distorted figure, with very thick parts and very thin parts sort of like some of Giacometti’s work. That didn't really work as planned though, and the figure didn't have as much movement as I had hoped, but in the end I am proud of it. 

For this work, I used newsprint for the base of getting the shape, and kind of the structure for it all. Newsprint is what newspaper is printed on, but this stuff was in large sheets and had no writing.  Then I used tape to hold it all together and to solidify the shape. Then I mixed together Elmer's glue and water to make the paper mache mixture, in which I dipped ripped up magazine parts to stick onto the armature to give it the color and meaning described above. 

I started out with the newsprint. I started by just ripping up good sized pieces and crumpling it up into the general shape that I wanted. I sort of constructed the body first, then made an arm attached it, made a second arm and attached it, continuing that process for the legs, and the head went on last.  After the general shape was all there, I wrapped tape very tightly around it. This endured that there was something even and solid to paper mache to. After that I began to paper mache process. It went well for a bit, then once you get a lot on there it starts to move around and get all off. It also takes forever to dry so you sort of either have to deal with the movement and fix it later once it's dry, or just let it be until it dries to continue working on it.