Animal-Portrait Project

OPTION A: Animal Portrait

Create a portrait of a person as an animal.

  • Choose a person: a well‐known person from history, politics, literature, or the public sphere. You may alternately choose to do a self‐portrait.

  • Choose an animal, any animal.

  • Create a three‐dimensional portrait of your chosen person in the guise of this animal.

Process:

• Collect images of both your chosen person and your chosen animal and create a real or virtual scrapbook of these images.

• Come up with ideas for at least three different versions of this sculpture.

• Create drawings that represent each of these ideas. Be sure to conceptualize each version from several angles, meaning create more than one drawing of each of the three ideas.

• Once you have discussed these ideas with Sara, create a small, solid maquette of your chosen version. This will serve as a model for the final piece.This sculpture should be primarily coil‐built and at least 15 inches tall or long. It may be designed to sit on the floor, on a table or pedestal, to hang from the ceiling, or to hang on a wall. It can be a single object or a series of objects.

Surface: Ceramic surface should be used to further develop your narrative through color, texture, pattern or imagery.

Objectives:

  • to become proficient in coil-building

  • to learn to build at a larger scale

  •  to continue to learn timing as it relates to the ceramic process

  • to continue to develop an understanding of low‐fire surface materials

  • to express narrative ideas in three dimensions using form and surface

POCESS for Both PROJECTS:

Idea Development 

  1. Decide on Person/Animal

  2. Collect resource images and create an image file (digital or analog)

  3. Do drawings of at least 3 possible sculptures based on your THEME. Include multiple views of each idea. 

  4. Talk with Sara about your ideas, and choose one idea. October 24th and 26th

  5. Build a small, solid maquette of your sculpture AND do a 15" drawing to exact scale, of your piece. Draw at least 2 views of the object. 

  6. For the slab project, make paper templates for cutting out slabs.

Making

  1. Dry out your bag(s) of clay if necessary

  2. roll out slabs or extrude coils. Make enough to build your entire 15" project.

  3. Dry slabs to early leather hard consistency, then wrap them tightly.

  4. Wrap coils tightly in two layers of plastic immediately after extruding them.

  5. Begin building parts of your project for assembly.

  6. Assemble parts when they are leather hard.

  7. After assembly, refine form and surface at the leather hard stage.