More Animal Research

My tutors keep asking why I used animals to portray the emotions, and how other people may think otherwise to my decisions. However, I thought about it and released that people relate to animals via spirit animals.

So I looked at a website so spirit animals and searched for the animals I'll be sculpting and this is what I found.

If Bear is your Animal Totem:

You have a great deal of patience in manifesting your ideas and projects waiting for just the right moment to spring them on the universe.. You have a great deal of confidence in who you are and where you are going in life. You are looked upon as an authority figure. You are nurturing and protect your children well.

Additional Associations for Bear….

Introspection
Subconscious/Unconscious mind
Strength
Grounding
Inner energy of soul to find answers
Judgments, are you too critical or not critical enough
Inner power to taste the honey of life
Peace
Nurturing and Protection
Resurrection
Confidence and Authority
Powerful
Patience and Connection
Benevolence
Aggressiveness
Sovereignty
Motherhood
Duality


If Deer is your Animal Totem:

You have the knowledge of how to use the power of gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of the wounded beings in your life. You have a propensity to see new innocence and freshness in life everywhere and you constantly feel the lure of new adventures. Often you have a link to the arts, especially poetry and music.

You are also a keen observer, able to see well in low light. You are also a very compassionate, gentle and loving person.

Additional Associations for Deer…

Gentleness
Love
Alertness
Camouflage
Attention to subtler outside influences
Connections to children and people for best interests of all
Vision
Hearing
Smell
Helps discern what actions to be done
Grace
Peace
Beauty
Fertility
Humility
Swiftness
Regrowth
Creativity
Spirituality
Abundance
Benevolence
Watchfulness

I am also using animals to give depression and anxiety as a physical form in hoping that people believe they are real.

Mood Board

It's not really a mood "board" as it's more of a list, but this is basically a mood board for the overall look and atmosphere for the final look of my installation when it's been fully constructed and placed in the Grad show. 

I am looking to place lighting below the sculptures to give them a powerful appearance/stance, the platform they'll be standing on will also give them that boost in importance/intimidation. I am also hoping go give them an boost with the size and severity of them but giving them haunting shadows, as I believe shadows give them life, it shows that they are real.

Sculpting

In this post will be the journey of me testing out ways to make my Adfectus sculptures and the process of making them from start to finish. 

To start this project was an absolute bitch! I struggled so much trying to find the right wire to make these sculptures with. I tried everywhere you could buy wire from and no luck until I came across a B&Q with the exact wire that I needed, not too thin and pretty sturdy too. PERFECT! So to start with I needed to create the frame for the back legs, so I measured out some wire and prepared my hot glue gun for some sticking. 

All was looking well until I started to paper mache the frame. The paper mache went on fine but after letting it dry I would find the wire frames bending from the dry paper mache.

So obviously that wasn't going to work so I looked around for some other ways to give these animals some skin. Not long after I found that tissue paper is a good way to fill in the gaps and it comes already coloured in the colours I need. BONUS! So I start cutting out pieces of the tissue paper and apply it each side at a time. 

Until I have the whole limb wrapped in the tissue paper. 

After some more sticking and burning myself I have managed to create both back legs, front legs and bear bum. The only issue now is trying to create the arch of the back without it falling over, bending or falling apart. 

 As you can see in the not so clear images above is that I have started to create what will be the main body of the bear, whilst using other pieces of the sculpture to prop up certain wires to stop the whole thing from tipping. 

Measurements

Here are the measurements for the current projects I am doing for 3rd year, one of the reasons I have these measurements is the fact that for the Grad show I need space to install these installations so knowing how much room these will take up is very important. It also has other helpful factors, like if one sculpture broke I know what size to make it again. 

Earth vs Humans Busts: 

H - 26”

W - shoulders 17”

    - base 12”

L - 6-7”

Plinths:

H - 36”

L - 13-13.5”

W - 13-13.5”

Room Needed:

W - 100” (2.60m)

10ft-12ft between projector and busts

11-12” between busts

55” from the back wall

Adfectus: 

Bear:

H = 30"

L = TBA

W = 19.5"

Stag:

H = TBA

L = TBA

W = TBA

Beast:

H = TBA

L = TBA

W = TBA

New New Treatment

That's right it's changed again!

Due to starting work on the bear sculpture, I realised that I wouldn't have enough time or money to make all seven sculptures in time for deadline.

So instead, I thought the best thing to do is to create the two main sculptures, the Bear and the Stag, as originally discussed. However, I will be exchanging the rest of the sculptures to make the Beast, as I can make the Beast very large and can focus all my time onto them three instead of rushing seven of them.

Also, an issue has been brought up due to the size of both of my projects, I currently have my 4 busts bundled in the corner of the room but I have half a bear taking up the main space of my bedroom. Sadly, I am struggling to find space for these projects, I have even tried storing them at uni, however, our classroom is shared and I don't want to leave them out to be damaged or take up other peoples work space. I was given the advice to make my current sculptures compactable/transportable, but due to the technique I'm using to put the sculptures together kind of makes it impossible, also I don't have time to test out ways to make it possible due to deadlines are just around the corner.

New Display Layout

Now that I'm doing just 3 sculptures now I can display in a organised fashion. Whilst in a discussion with my tutor we tried to figure out how to display them in the best way. And one of the ideas that we had was to put them on a platform to make it a stage and change the view of the sculptures, as if they were just placed on the ground they would look part of the room, just plain sculptures. However, if I place them on a platform, it makes it as if they were on a stage and then the sculptures then become a performance in a way and doesn't blend in with the room.

The one issue we had was that if I put them all one platform, they will all be individual heights and to reach the shorter sculptures you'd need to bend down quite low, and if I heighten the platform the Beast would be too big to fit a normal sized room. So I come up with idea of putting each sculpture on it's own pedestal at specific height so they all come up to around the same height.

This means that all sculptures are around average height, and then hopefully all sounds will be coming from all the sculptures head/chest area. Also with the platforms being separate pieces, when it comes to the grad show it is possible to alter the positioning with ease and you can fit this piece into the corner. However, my tutor mentioned to me that these sculptures don't really have a back or front them as they 3D models, so she wondered if it was possible to have space behind the piece for viewers to walk around the piece itself. 

As for lighting, I wanted to place lights inside the sculptures, however, doing that would make them a lot like a lantern from Ikea. So, I came with the idea to place lights underneath the sculptures, placing 3 LED lights directly underneath, as doing that will still light them up, and then place 3 roughly in the same area but in front of them so it creates shadow of each sculpture. This will hopefully create a creepy yet enticing atmosphere that will hopefully draw in audience.