Hands Sculpture
Process Images
Sculpture:
Premature All Natural Baby
Approx. 5" by 7" by 5"
Materials: listed below
Sketch:
Pre-Premature All Natural Baby
Approx. 8.5" by 11"
Materials: paper, green micron pen
Hands Sculpture
All Natural Baby
Approx. 5" by 7" by 5"
Materials: plaster, alginate, hot glue, false grass, false flowers, acrylic paint, ribbon, tissue paper
Artist's Statement:
Jillian Wight
Medsker
3D Design
12 April 2021
For this piece, I really wanted to focus on the idea of human and environmental interaction. Specifically, I wanted to convey the message to my viewers that the natural world gives us life, and is a huge part of us all. Because of this, we must respect it and treat it with the kindness it deserves. While I could have portrayed the negative ways in which we interact with the environment, I chose instead to portray the more positive and uplifting aspect of this message in the hopes of inspiring people. The two hands clasped together illustrate togetherness and a sense of unity and community that is automatically inviting to a viewer. In addition, the warm copper color adds to this welcoming vibe, and the layered textures and depths of detail in my addition of flowers and grass adds the specifics needed to really solidify my message. On top of this, I simply loved the idea of turning my hands into a landscape! I was excited to complete the process, and I’m happy I followed my instinct.
I started this piece by creating an alginate mold of my hands and filling it with plaster. I then sketched out my plan for the project, and made adjustments as my idea developed. After sketching both on paper and on the actual plaster mold, I used hot glue to secure false grass to my sculpture. I then tightly rolled a number of ribbons, again using hot glue to attach them to the piece. I used scissors to texture and shape these ribbons so that they appeared to look more like flowers, and I used acrylic paint to emphasize these variations in shape. Once these flowers were glued to the sculpture, I folded green tissue paper into leaves to frame them. I then used acrylic paint and a pencil tip to dot the false grass with various colors, and used my finger to add different shades of green. This made the grass look more natural, to create the illusion I wanted. The most difficult step was to paint the remaining uncovered plaster with copper-colored acrylic. I had to experiment with paints, and even tried to use sharpies. Once I found the material that worked best, I had to carefully outline where I had put the grass before filling in the rest of the space. I then used green paint to touch up the edges of the grass that had been covered. Finally, I cut up a flower bouquet and used hot glue to secure the pieces onto my sculpture. I made sure to think about space and shape, so that the flowers emphasized the form of the hands rather than overpowering it.
As I briefly stated before, I experimented a lot with my process. From the start, I had a clear picture in my head of what I wanted this sculpture to look like. Between then and the final product, I tried a number of methods to create my ideal product. I played around with painting the grass on, I considered using glue to attach real dirt, and struggled with creating false flowers. Originally, I planned to hand-make them all myself, however, after making approximately 5, I realized that it was a very tedious process and I needed more variety in the shape and size of the flowers so as to effectively manipulate the form of the sculpture. A number of factors led to my final product, from logistics to changes in vision to expansions of ideas. Overall, I’m really proud of my finished product. This was a new type of sculpture to me, but it really resonated with me and was a lot of fun!