Wire Sculptures

The task that my class was given was to create a sculpture using wire of an object with the theme of nostalgia in mind. First we had to make a chain out of wire with ten links. Then we had to do a wire sculpture of a little dixie cup, which was our formative. After that we then had to complete the summative which was the The object that I chose initially was a huge plushy of George from the British children's show, Peppa Pig. But eventually I thought that I should change the subject of my sculpture to a plushy of Patrick Star, a character from the Nickelodeon hit cartoon, Spongebob Squarepants. I used wire, pliers, and wire cutters to create this sculpture.

Composition wise, it's pretty basic. I couldn't do much with it since it is a recreation of my plushy, however I didn't include the face as it was a little difficult to attach the eyes and mouth. In the end though, the compositional change kind of looks cool and modern-art esc due to the medium. Also I think that it still looks like Patrick without his face, so I didn't think it was too necessary. There is no value or color since it's a wire sculpture, so the project relies on form and shape the most. I tried to form the shapes to replicate what Patrick looks like in the cartoon. I used a thinner gauge wire to create the seams in my plushy and used thicker wire to do the important shapes and silhouettes to create interest and balance in the sculpture. Overall there wasn't much compositional wise and not too much creative liberty since it was supposed to be a study of a plushy. My project did change as I had said before. I had originally wanted to do George from Peppa Pig but it didn't turn out so good since I had to connect two big forms together and the forms were different sizes and I found it a burden to stick exactly to the scale. So I switched over to Patrick and it was much easier to freehand the sculpture without strictly sticking to a scale since his proportions are fairly straight forward.

Since the theme of this project was nostalgia, there is some meaning/a story to this sculpture. I have a bunch of plushies and stuffed animals from my childhood and I still collect some occasionally. Most of my plushies (including my Patrick) were won in arcades and claw machines from different places. I won Patrick three years ago in Hong Kong at an arcade. I am most proud of the overall form of the sculpture. I think that is recognizable as Patrick. I definitely struggled with making George in the beginning but when I switched to Patrick, I did struggle with the face. Which I did overcome by not doing it. If I could make the sculpture better, I would focus on refining the seams and the flowers on his pants.