Assemblage

For this piece I made a Seahorse. I thought of this idea because I knew I wanted to do an under the sea theme. I tried to go with realistic colors, shape, and form however the final project is a mix of both abstract and realistic. I wasn't specifically trying to say anything with my artwork however I did want it to be appealing to look at. I wanted it to be recognizable and have the similar features to an actual seahorse. Even though I wanted it to be realistic, I did choose a size that is not similar to a life size seahorse. I created a larger model because I wanted to be able to pay attention to those details and get the curves and edges right.

I started by creating the inside of stomach/abdomen area. I used newsprint and crumbled it up into balls to then tape these together. I tried to make this extremely compact so I would have a solid form to work with. I then created the tail with newsprint but I ended up wrapping wire around the tail so that it would stay in this spiraling form. I proceeded to make the head also out of newsprint again out of a very compact form. I used lots and lots of tape to make sure that the newsprint would stay compact and also hold itself together with the other parts of the body. I ended up tracing the back spine area of the body to get the correct length of the cardboard I needed to cut out for the spikes. I traced out this form and then taped it to the rest of the body.

For the final product I cut out pieces of paper from magazines with the correct color scheme I wanted. Originally I was using hot glue to attach it to the body however this was looking chucky and unrealistic so I started using the paper mache process. I used a mixture of water and glue in a small dish and mixed with together until it was completely combine. I would dip the magazine edge into the dish and then use my fingers to spread the glue and water mixer over the magazine. I then would lay in onto the area I wanted to cover it with and then would push down lightly to get the form of the body. One I repeated this many times and covered the whole body I let it dry and it became hardened. I'm and very pleased with the final product and would definitely recommend trying this to someone else.