Assemblage Sculpture

Artist statement:

My main idea for this artwork was to create a french cartoon looking octopus sculpture. My other ideas for this was to use recycled materials to create this instead of other strange materials. I decided to use recycled materials that end up killing sea life in the ocean to make up this octopus sculpture. Kind of like an ironic kind of thing. I think that this octopus was a great project to wrap up the school year because I got to make something 3d with new materials as well as paper and a pencil.

For this project we first started with a sketch which I just used paper and a pencil. Then To make the base of the sculpture I used Newspaper and painters tape to make the armature. I tried to make the armature as stiff as possible and as sturdy as possible because I didn't want it to cave in. Then I used some leftover fabric to wrap the body and the tentacles in to make them look more exciting. I used some left over bottle caps for eyes. I was also contemplating using some scrap plastic to make a french mustache but ended up deciding against it. I also used left over ribbon containers and a button for the barrae on the octopus’s head.

I didn’t do any research for this process but I did use some inspiration. At my old school we made giant human sculptures of ourselves by first wrapping ourselves in cling wrap and then wrapping it in tape. This kind of reminded me of our current project because we were making a sculpture out of tape and different materials. I had to experiment with different materials for wrapping in the beginning. First, tried to attach different pieces of plastic bags but it was hard to do on a round shape. Then I tried using paper pieces but that also didn’t work due to the different kinds of thickness’s of the paper. In the end I ended up going with fabric because it is most flexible and fun to look at.