Intro Design Final Project

For our final project, we created a head and shoulder sculpture based off a famous painting. I chose Roy Lichtenstein's 'Still Life with Crystal Bowl' and took inspiration from his strong use of contrast in the horizontal lines and the pops of vibrant color in the fruit.

The inspiration: Still Life with Crystal Bowl. Roy Lichtenstein. 1973.

Deconstructing the image into shapes and colors to start thinking about how to use them. (Page from sketchbook)

Working out the idea of the form I was after: the rim of the crystal bowl. I wanted to take two curves and their vertex and create a 3D version. The vertex would sit on the wearer's shoulders and the curves would be on the front and behind the head of the wearer. (Page from sketchbook)

Before I built the form, I thought through the process and wrote detailed notes to remember in what order and how I wanted to approach it. The notes at the bottom indicate ideas on how to incorporate the fruit elements. (Page from sketchbook)

First step: build form from thick wire.

Second step: paper mâché the wire to impart bulk and strength.

Step 3: Wrap form in black felt to cover paper mâché and give smooth surface on which to attach paper.

Step 4: Alternate black and translucent paper to mimic idea of the alternating horizontal black stripes in the still life's background.

Step 5: Black spokes are added on the bottom half of the piece and white spokes are attached to the top half. This to carry the idea of the alternating black and white stripes further, as well as to play with negative space.

Top view to see the white spokes. These were formed with Thermomorph plastic and hand molded. The bottom black spokes are balsa wood.

Last Step: I created fruit forms and painted them according to the still life. They were strung at 3-inch intervals and attached to the back of the sculpture.

The form hung, with the painting and color palette.

The sculpture balances on the shoulders to curve down over the chest and curve back behind the head.

In the profile view, the curve is more apparent. The fruit beads can also be seen, as they loop around they around the arm to connect the back of the sculpture to the front.

The back of the sculpture. The spokes continually play with eye from all angles of the piece. The fruit is seen now as they march from the back to the front of the piece.